Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 8

State Region ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES Page2B Monday, Dec. 12,1994 S.C.'s youngest solicitor tackling state's biggest murder case Pope said his staff was so overburdened that it was impossible to make sure everyone charged with a crime went to trial. Since he first came to office, Pope has reduced the backlog from more than 8,000 cases to 5,000. Pope says he is trying to keep the Smith case, one of the most publicized in the state's history, in perspective. He has other cases to work on, too, he said.

He no longer returns the deluge of daily calls from reporters, instead leaving recorded messages with updated court information. But recently one of his 5-year-old son's friends came to him with a simple question that hit hard. The boy, only slightly older than Michael and Alex Smith, "looked up at me and said, 'Are you gonna help those little prosecuting drug cases and helping on a death penalty case in Edgefield. Later, he turned down offers to become a defense attorney and went back to York to run for solicitor. He says now he couldn't bring himself to switch to the other side.

"I know it sounds corny, but I consider myself one of the good guys," Pope said. But it hasn't all been accolades. County councilors complained that he spent too much on frivolous items like bonuses and flower arrangements. And when serial killer Henry Wallace was caught in Charlotte, N.C., in March, Pope was criticized for failing to try him on rape, even though his office had charged Wallace with rape in 1992. In the time between the rape charge and his arrest in Charlotte, police say Wallace killed four women.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS COLUMBIA, S.C. Tommy Pope is the youngest solicitor in South Carolina and he is tackling the state's most prominent case a mother accused of drowning her two baby boys. In the two years since Pope, 32, was elected, he has worked on three death penalty cases. On Monday he takes to the grand jury the case of Susan Smith, the Union mother who first told authorities her sons were kidnapped before telling police she killed them. But Pope's experience belies his age and short time as solicitor He was practically born into law enforcement Growing up with a father who was a deputy and then York County sheriff, and working for the State Law Enforcement Division before law school, he became addicted to the life of a cop, he says.

"Once I got involved, I was hooked," said Pope, who worked his way up at SLED from "phone boy" to narcotics agent before law school. "I had my LTD, my credentials and the blue light I was a young happy man." At the urging of his father, Elbert Pope, and now-deceased SLED Chief JP. Strom, Pope settled on prosecuting criminals rather than arresting them. Pope has said he will decide in January whether to seek the death penalty against Smith. In the Smith case, Pope faces death penalty opponent David Brack.

Brack, 45, has made a career out of keeping people out of the electric chair arguing cases all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and winning. "It's going to be a case with a tremendous amount of attention and pressure, "I know it sounds corny, but I consider myself one of the good guys." TOMMY POPE, S.C. SOLICTOR but Tommy is extremely hard-working and extremely focused," said Solicitor Donnie Myers, who gave Pope his first job as a prosecutor. In those earlier death penalty cases, Pope won a death penalty in the first, saw the accused get life in the second and has yet to prosecute the third.

After law school he became one of 12 SLED agents assigned to the governor's narcotics task force. A few years later, he left to test his courtroom skills for Myers, ANYBODY IN THERE? First nftness protection plan for N.C. result of July escape DIGEST -Snow and ice THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RALEIGH The first escape in the history of Central Prison caused the state Correction Department to offer its first witness protection plan. James Stromer, who escaped July 29, had long threatened to break out of Central Prison, promising to terrorize those who had testified against him. So the state hid his daughter and son-in-law in a motel near their Iowa home.

Then it flew them to Raleigh in a State Bureau of Investigation plane, stashed them in an apartment and put the son-in-law to work in a prison warehouse. Meanwhile, prison guards protected one of Strainer's victims around the clock at her implicit promise to protect citizens by placing Stromer in maximum custody a promise broken when he escaped in a trash truck. "I felt some moral obligation to protect them," Freeman said. Stromer, a 48-year-old former college instructor, was serving life plus 61 years for two rapes and a murder-fbr-hire ploy in Greenville. In 1989 and 1990, Stromer stalked his victims in the early morning hours.

He blindfolded them and raped them in their back yards, then drove them to remote locations and raped them repeatedly. He threatened to kill them if they called police. In jail awaiting trial, Stromer tried to hire a fellow inmate to kill one of the women. Greenville home. The four-month effort ended Nov.

21 when the FBI captured Stromer with attack dogs and a helicopter in a raid on a Florida mobile home. Prison officials are looking for a way to debit the operation's $45,000 cost, since no witness tection account is on the books. But Mack Jarvis, deputy correction secretary, says the state did the right thing. "If we have an escape, and if we think it warrants it, well do it again," he said. "Well talk with the local sheriff or the SBI, and if the threats are serious, I think well react the same way." Correction Secretary Franklin Freeman says the state made an close parkway Snow and ice forced the closure of a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway Sunday.

A parkway spokesman said the parkway was closed from Craggy Gardens to Mount Mitchell The spokesman said that section of the parkway could reopen Monday if the weather warms enough to melt the ice and snow. Church vandalized Vandals scribbled profanities on the front doors of the Kenil-worth Presbyterian Church, according to an Asheville Police Department report The Rev. John Stewart reported the vandalism about 9:30 Sunday morning. According to the report, the vandals used markers and pens to scribble "profanities and other sayings" on the doors. Two wreaths were taken from the i I LJ A hi I I 4 ') Senator seeks advice from ethics committee doors, the report said.

Police are investigating the in- cident 'w Si I THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CHARLOTTE Sen. Lauch Faircloth, a major hog farmer, has asked the Senate Ethics Committee for advice on whether he has a conflict of interest in pushing through an agriculture subsidy that's expected to raise hog prices. The subsidy wDl cost taxpayers, possibly as much as $20 million, and increase the cost of pork at the grocery store. All hog farmers stand to benefit from the subsidy at a time when prices are falling because of an oversupply of pork In the United States. Faircloth, has a majority interest in at least nine North Carolina farms raising an estimated 140,000 hogs a year.

A spokesman said Faircloth is seeking advice from the ethics committee. North Carolina is the second-largest hog-producing state in the nation, behind Iowa. Faircloth and 15 other senators asked U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy to subsidize the sale of 20,000 metric tons of American pork to nations of the former Soviet Union. Espy approved the deal Nov.

5. Faircloth noted that pork production represents 20,000 North Carolina jobs and pumps more than $1 billion annually into the state's economy. JIM BURGINCTTIZEN-TIMES The cold weather that moved into Western North Carolina had people bundling up Sunday. At the SU Beech Ice rink, Ed Oke, of Huntersvflle, checks his 6-year-old ton Brian's clothes to make sure he stays warm in the 20-degree temperatures. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Lauch Faircloth has a majority Interest in at least nine North Carolina hog farms.

Mountain spinner leaves lasting legacy woven into quilts and bedspreads One dead In traincar wreck HAW RIVER A Graham man was killed on a foggy morning after a Southern Norfolk train plowed into his car, flattened it and dragged it at least one-third of a mile. Jose Alberto Salgado, 27, died from injuries sustained in the accident on Saturday, Ken Stainback, funeral director at McClure Funeral Service confirmed. The impact caused the car to be sandwiched underneath the train's first engine. Crews worked 2 'A hours to pry the car free. Boone fugitive warrant MOUNTAIN CITY, Term.

A man suspected of involvement in what authorities say may be the first killing in Boone, N.G, in three years has been arrested. Robert Charles Bragg, 41, Mountain City, was being held for North Carolina authorities at the Johnson County Jail Sunday night on a fugitive warrant, a Johnson County Sheriffs Department spokesman said. Boone authorities said they want to question Bragg about the death of Coy Hartley, 74, whose body was found Friday night at his home. The body had visible wounds, but authorities were not specific about them. They called the death suspicious.

An autopsy has been ordered. Duke student wins Rhodes LOS ANGELES A Duke University student was one of 32 students who wre named Sunday to receive prestigious scholarships to attend Oxford University under the Rhodes scholars program. Michael Wenthe of Athens, will be among 18 women and 14 men who will head to Oxford tnext faD, with plana to pursue studies in engineering, medicine, politics and theology, among other subjects. r- A record number of women were named Rhodes scholars Sunday for the third straight year. Seventeen women were named scholars last year and 16 women In .1992.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS goes into the woods and picks nuts, acorns and berries, and boils them to create dyes. Home-grown onions are boiled and used for their natural yellow color in much of her work. Her house is filled with her work, the fruits of a craft she learned when she was young in Avery County. "Everything I learned, I learned from my mother," Trivette said. Her mother, Polly Harmon, taught her about spinning and knitting from the time she was 10.

Designs were held sacred in families and often passed down to the girls when they married. Her mother's designs feature patterns in various flowers, especially daisies. Trivette, now a widow, had six children. After her husband be ELSIE TRVETTTS WORK has been displayed In the Smithsonian Institution In Washington. THIS SUMMER, she received for the second time the N.C.

Arts Heritage Award and $3,000 for her contribution to preserving the folklore of the Appalachian region. SHE WAS US0 FIATMD in the October issue of Folk Crafts magazine, a publication out of towi Trivette remembers those hardship years doing laundry for neighbors for $1 a week and taking the money home to her mother to buy a sack of flour to feed the family- But she often wishes she could go back to that log cabin with no running water or electricity. "Folks were closer back then, and life was safer than It is today," THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ZIONVILLE Elsie Trivette'a large, strong and still-steady hands have spun history into her priceless bedspreads, all edged with lacy fringe, and match-ing dainty pillows. Trivette is one of the few mountain women still sewing the colonial knotted bedspreads with steady fingers and staccato rhythm to transform plain white thread into clusters of designs that look like pearls strewn on snowy ice-covered streams. For most of her 84 years, the Watauga County spinner has enjoyed showing visitors the old Appalachian tradition in its true form.

She remembers the day that actor Kurt Russell knocked on her front door. She did not know who he was and welcomed him Into her home and started teaching him how to spin. Later that day, Coldie Hawn showed up. One of Trivette'a children finally told her that she had famous people in her living room. "I don't care how rich they are or famous, they surely were a nice couple," she said.

"Nothing excites mother said her daughter June, who lives nearby. Russell was in Avery and Watauga counties making the movie, "The Winter People," about the hardships of growing up and act tling in the Blue Ridge mountains years ago, came too ill to work, she raised "Folks V3PT0 rfnver I 1 mi ii.i. DOCK men, ana llje Was father, John, died safer than it is today. leaving her molli- she said. Trivette's homemade rugs, which she spins from sheep's wool, and quilts start at $200 and increase in price from there.

Her knotted Colonial- ELSIETRTVETTE er a widow with eight children to raise. WATAUGA COUNTY SPINNLR Trivette ad mits she was not interested In school and wanted to slay home and help her mother raise the kids. But she did learn to read and write. design spreads sell for $1,000. A bedfipread can take 600 hour to make, she said.

Trivette tries to keep her work aa natural as possible. She THE ASSOCIATED PR13S Dde Trfvttte, 84, of Watavga County, holds a hooked rug the making. Trfvttte, a sward-wlnnlnf moutrtala artisan, makes rags, quflts and colonial knotted bedspreads the old-fashioned way..