The Springfield News-Leader from Springfield, Missouri • Page 1

Weekend: St. Patrick's Day Parade goes for family flavor TV Springfield 4 GOOD MORNING 3 Friday I March 15, 1996 Springfield, Missouri 50 -J. 1 ADER la dfai mm nil ddd mm SMS expected to name new dean Dip Michael Lee Swain will spend at least 254 years in prison, prosecutor says. It also orders Swain to go with police and recover two guns allegedly used in the slayings of Bryan J. Jones and James J.

Brown. The search was expected Thursday night. Swain "will spend at least 25.5 years in prison," Greene County Prosecutor Ron Carrier said. "It could be as much as 51 years before he's eligible for parole This gets a bad guy off the streets." Brown, 20, of Springfield, and Jones, 25, of Nixa, were shot dead on Friday, Oct. 13, 1995.

Police said the men died By Ron Davis News-Leader Oneof two men accused oflastyear's double slayings near the city stockyards faces four life terms in prison, after a surprise guilty plea on Thursday. Michael Lee Swain, 25, was scheduled to stand trial starting Monday. Instead, he pleaded guilty to two counts each of armed criminal action and second-degree murder. A written plea agreement calls for sentences to run consecutively. Suspect drops hints about missing women 'i.

tfvic, 'Wfiaiis From Our Staff Southwest Missouri State University is expected to name a new dean for the College of Education today. Roger Bennett of Bowling Green University in Ohio will be appointed to the post, pending approval by the Board of Governors. Bennett, chosen from more than 40 candidates, has 18 years of administrative experience. Inside: Details. IB Line-item veto wins support from Republicans New York Times News Service WASHINGTON Prodded by Sen.

Bob Dole, congressional Republicans ended a nearly yearlong stalemate and agreed Thursday on a version of the line-item veto for the president. The proposed legislation would shift much of the power of the purse from Congress to the White House. It would give the president the power to remove items from spending bills one by one, rather than vetoing or approving the measure as a whole, as is now the case. House and Senate negotiators are to meet to draft the measure into a bill next week, at which time it will be decided when it would take effect. Sen.

John McCain, who has been one of the leaders Of the fight for the line-item veto, said he expected the bill would call for the veto power to take effect this year. The measure's supporters say it would allow the White House to kill pork-barrel projects and specially aimed tax breaks and to influence policy directives by denying money for them. As has been the case several times in the last few weeks, Dole, the Republican leader and now presumptive presidential nominee, worked behind the scenes to force a compromise on an issue that House and Senate Republicans had not wrapped up, despite the fact that both houses had passed different versions of the sure last year. Though the line-item veto was a part of the Contract With America, the House Republicans' 1994 campaign manifesto, most conferees ere in no hurry to resolve their dif- ferences, because they were in no hurry to give such a powerful budget weapon to a Democratic president. Under the proposed bill, the president could remove or reduce but not increase any numbers from a spending bill.

7T 4. 'a I i 1 i i i' 1 1 I in a hail of gunfire that erupted when a drug deal went sour. In interviews with the News-Leader, Stevie Glen Jimerson also accused in the slayings denied firing Swain any fatal shots and said Swain killed the men during a meeting with them near the Southwest Regional Stockyards because he thought Brown was a police informant. But Swain disputed those statements during his guilty plea before if 4' Cox continued living on the edge. Only now, he knew how not to get caught.

"I was very aware of what I was doing," he says. "So everything I did, I was very careful." Cox blames his California crimes on an addiction to gambling. The ad-diction still controlled him in Springfield, he says. See COX, Page 13A Residents who used to live in the Chestnut and Washington area remember the cabins often were frequented by famous black entertainers who performed in Springfield at Half-A-Hill or the Shrine Mosque. "At that particular time, we (blacks) didn't stay in the hotels," said longtime Springfield resident Vince Foster.

"When we had entertainers, that's where they stayed." Lee Harold, who lived across Washington from the barbecue restaurant, remembers James Graham putting up the cabins in the 1940s. Graham died in 1957. His wife Zelma still lives in the city. Practically all the black entertain Circuit Judge Don Bonacker. "I was the one that shot Bryan Jones," Swain said.

He didn't admit shooting Brown, but under Missouri law, an accomplice to a crime can be deemed just as guilty as the person who commits the actual crime. Swain told Bonacker that he didn't know Brown had been shot; he also denied knowing Jimerson had a weapon at the stockyards. Jimerson has admitted carrying a pistol to the crime scene but said he got off only one shot, aimed at Swain, trying to stop the carnage. Carrier disputed Jimerson's story in open court. Special Report ROBERT COX SPEAKS An ex-Springfield man investigated in the "missing women" case talks from prison about his checkered past, in the first part of a two-part series.

Tomorrow: Cox admits he looks for excitement in life. ers who performed in Springfield before desegregation stayed at the Wishing Well. Those who didn't moved on to the next town, Harold said. Georgia Burton remembers seeing many entertainers in Graham's restaurant enjoying the barbecue with its popular sauce. "Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and all of them," said Burton, who at that time lived a block away from the restaurant and cabins.

"Pearl Bailey and her husband stayed there. She would bring her dog. They would stay there and eat barbecue." Until it closed in 1967, Graham's was the place to be. Swain "made statements that he had shot Bryan Jones in the back of the head," Carrier said. Evidence shows Jones was hit with a slug, while Brown died from a bullet to the neck, Carrier said.

Swain appeared in court sporting a black eye and a swollen face. He told Bonacker that his nose had been broken Wednesday night, when his cellmate "struck me from behind when I wasn't paying attention." Swain said the beating had nothing to do with his guilty pleas. Swain's lawyer, public defender Frank Yankovich, declined comment on the pleas. Swain faces sentencing at 11 a.m. Monday.

Clinton bankrolls terrorism battle President pledges $100 million to pay for anti-terrorism initiatives in Israel. The Associated Press JERUSALEM Grieving with the Israeli people, President Clinton pledged $100 million on Thursday to the fight against terrorism. But he acknowledged that no one not presidents or princes or prime ministers can guarantee "a risk-free world." In an emotional trip that coupled meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres with a visit to the grave of Peres' slain predecessor, Yitzhak Ra-bin, Clinton imagined aloud how Americans would react to the terrorism that confronts Israel. "Our people would be off the wall. They would be angry.

They would be Clinton Israel plans guard towers, fences to stop terrorists. 11A furious. They would want action," he said. To that end, Clinton pledged the $100 million over two years to pay for anti-terrorism initiatives. Clinton intends to use $50 million already approved by Congress, and is asking for another $50 million for the fiscal year that begins in October.

"Fear must be conquered, security must be restored and peace must be pursued," Clinton said. "It was quite a popular spot," Burton said. "I was in and out of the place quite often. Every weekend people would go out there and visit. Cars would be lined up along Washington and Chestnut.

You could find almost anybody on Friday, Saturday night at Graham's." Actually, Graham's was the only place where black people really felt welcome, Harold said. "And be able to go through the front door and sit down where you wanted to." Katherine Lederer, an English professor at Southwest Missouri State University and a chronicler of Springfield black history, was sorry to hear that the cabins would soon be gone. "It just makes me sick," she said. Vol. 106.

No. 75 1996. News-Leader Dan Dyer News-Leader "I knew the police would be coming to talk to me, I just didn't know when," says Robert Craig Cox in a Texas prison. Cox remained handcuffed throughout the 5 Vi-hour interview this week in Iowa Park. Or is Cox just playing games because he loves the attention? By Robert Keyes News-Leader TOWA PARK, Texas Like most people living in Springfield four years ago when three women were abducted, Robert Craig Cox followed the case closely.

"Very closely," Cox says, using a phone on his side of a small glassed-in booth in a Texas prison. "I knew the police would be cofriihg toIalFto "me," I just didn't know when." The 36-year-old Parkview High School graduate, now serving a 30-year sentence for armed robbery, admits he's a worthy suspect in the unsolved missing women case that's four years old June 7. In a 5 'A-hour interview in the James V. Allred prison in Iowa Park, located just outside Wichita Falls, Cox shared his ideas on how the three women were taken. He offers an alibi for himself, though he admit it's a weak one.

In 1990, two years before Sher-rill Levitt, Suzanne Streeter and Stacy McCall were taken from Levitt's 1717 E. Delmar St. home, Cox returned to Springfield having served his nine-year California prison sentence for randomly kidnapping two women in separate 1985 incidents. He had walked away from death row and the 1989 Florida murder conviction of Sharon Zellers. The Florida Supreme Denise McGill News-Leader Marketplace: JCPenney is expanding upward at Battlefield Mall to add more selection in women's and children's clothing.

8A do of Court said the evidence wasn't there. Zellers' family is convinced of Cox's guilt. For years Cox had lived life "on the edge." At 18 he became an Army Ranger, a combat expert and a golden boy who for the next five years climbed the ranks faster than most soldiers his age. But because his parents lived in Springfield where Cox grew upas ateen life after prison began here. Historic oasis for black travelers razed fK- By Angel Streeter News-Leader Before desegregation, there was only one place in Springfield where black people passing through town could get a room.

And soon that place will be no more. The Wishing Well six cabins on the corner of Chestnut Expressway and Washington Avenue where the likes of Sarah Vaughan and Pearl Bailey took rooms is being torn wn to make way for the parking lot a new steakhouse. The cabins were arranged in a half-circle behind Graham's Rib Station, a restaurant noted for its barbecue. WEATHER Partly cloudy skies and mild, near normal, temperatures are on the slate for today. 2A 60" 40' Piles of rubble and one flagstone cabin are all that remained Thursday of the Wishing Well, at Washington Avenue and Chestnut Expressway.

At one time, it was the only Springfield hotel that took black guests. LOTTERY INDEX I SHOW-MES 1-2-9-11-13 Across Ozarks 2B Classified 7C Comics 7B Crossword 8B Deaths 4B Markets 8A Movies 6B Neighbors 3B Opinion 12A Ozarks 1B Sports 1C Weather 2A INSIDE Sports: Freshman guard Kareem Reid scores 21 points as Arkansas wins its NCAA Tournament opener over Penn State, 86-80, in the East Regional at Providence, R.I. 1C Please RECYCLE. The News-Leader is partially on recycled paper and is 100 A Gannett Newspaper printed recyclable. Precipitation: 10 40901H20351.