The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 32

FLORIDA The Orlando Sentinel, Wednesday, February 26, 1992 B-3 Larzelere won't use psychiatrists to avoid death By Sean Somerville OF THE SENTINEL STAFF she did it when our point all along was that-, she didn't do it." Larzelere's attorneys, who also represent her son, said if she receives a death sentence, her son might want to plea bargain. "Maybe he would ask us to go talk with thel- state," Wilkins said. "I don't anticipate happening." I Randy Means, an investigator who has acted as the prosecution's spokesman, said the state has always been willing to entertain plea offers from the defense. "We never say never," Means said. But he said the state will not make any offers and the two sides have had no negotiations.

adopted son, makes any plea offers. "Jason has made no offers," said special prosecutor Les Hess, an Orange County assistant state attorney. "If he makes us an offer, we'll seriously consider it in light of the evidence we have." Virginia Larzelere's sentencing hearing, originally scheduled for March 9, was changed Tuesday to March 3 after defense attorneys asked Watson for an earlier date. After that hearing, jurors will recommend whether Larzelere should be sentenced to life imprisonment or to death. The recommendation is not binding, but the judge must seriously consider it.

Jack Wilkins, one of Larzelere's attorneys, said outside the courtroom Tuesday that if a psychologist or psychiatrist told the jury she had "diminished mental capacity" during the murder, the testimony might help stave off a death sentence. But, Wilkins said, "It would be ludicrous for us to say she had diminished capacity when DAYTONA BEACH Virginia Larzelere won't use psychiatrists at her sentencing hearing next week to help her avojd the electric chair. Larzelere waived the right Tuesday to have experts testify about her state of mind on the day her husband was killed. "I do not wish any experts," a downcast Larzelere told Circuit Judge Jack Watson a day after her first-degree murder conviction. Prosecutors say Larzelere, 39, hired her son, Jason, 19, to gun down her husband, Norman, in his Edgewater dentist office last March 8 for more than $2 million in insurance money.

No trial date has been set for Jason Larzelere, who also is charged with first-degree murder. A prosecutor said Tuesday the state will listen if Jason Larzelere, Norman Larzelere's Defense will try to attorneys also said Tuesday they have Jason Larzelere's trial moved because publicity, combined with his mother' conviction, will make a fair trial impossible, "How are we going to get a fair trial with coverage at 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 and 11:00," said John Howes, the Larzeleres' other attorney. 0 IJfN! Chiles should take a cue from Bush These are troubling days for Lawton Chiles, aka The Great Unloved One. Just two years ago, he was the much-adored conquering hero, who had returned to his homeland from the congressional Crusades to soundly thump the evil incumbent Republican governor and restore happiness to all the land. Now now he's more unpopular than Bob Martinez ever was.

At least that's the finding in a recent poll of Floridians. Some 76 percent of us now give Chiles a "poor" or "fair" rating. Even at the nadir of his popularity, during his 1987 turnaround on the service tax issue, Martinez sunk only to a 65 percent unfavorable rating. When told about the poll results, Chiles said: "My dog likes me." Which probably explains why, in his desperate attempt to find money for state coffers, Chiles hasn't recommended a special tax on flea dip or milk bones. Yet.

But what's a governor to do when public goodwill is at an all-time low? Obvious take a cue from George Bush. It was just slightly more than one year ago, with opinion polls crumbling all around him, with Americans finally starting to worry that their president just might not have a domestic policy after all, that Bush hit upon a brilliant strategy for salvaging popularity. He started a war. Hey, Lawton, is there a light bulb flickering somewhere inside your head? Granted, it is highly unusual, not to mention unconstitutional, for a state to declare war. But there are certain opportunities that now present themselves, opportunities that Lawton Chiles, as an embattled governor, simply cannot ignore.

We've got big defense contractors, such as Martin Marietta, with plants in Florida, just sitting around twiddling their Patriot missiles in the wake of all this peace and harmony that has infected the world superpowers lately. We've got Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, retired in Florida. He's tan. He's rested.

Plus he's writing his memoirs. And leading Florida troops in a war wouldn't that be a great book promotion? Plus we've got any number of likely opponents for us to go to war against. Such as: The Bahamas: Because we've pretty much ruined the Keys and need someplace else semitropical to mess up. Sneak a few thousand Florida National Guardsmen aboard some cruise ships and, Bob Morris COLUMN WORLD presto, Nassau is ours. The first thing we'll do is take over all the casinos and claim the house winnings for the people of Florida.

Hey, it might ward off a state income tax for a couple more years. Alabama: A matter of geopolitical preservation, since Alabama has already pretty well taken over our Panhandle. Where do you think all those rednecks come from who call Panama City the Redneck Riviera? After occupying Alabama, Florida would prohibit intercollegiate football at Auburn University and the University of Alabama and recruit Alabama gridiron talent for ourselves. That way the University of Florida, the University of Miami and Florida State University would definitely wind up Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in the polls.

Canada: They've been sitting ducks up there for too long, hogging the world's caribou reserves and complaining about how we are sending them acid rain. If none of the U.S.-northern border states are equal to the task, then Florida will gladly send convoys up 1-75 and kick some maple leaf booty. We'd invade Canada this time of year, while roughly half the population is wintering in Florida. Our Canadian snowbirds, meanwhile, would be rounded up, placed in "internment camps" and given a taste of a cattle prod each time they ended a sentence with an annoying "eh?" Georgia: Just because it's there. North Carolina: North Carolinians have escalated the hostilities in recent years by making snide remarks about us don't brake for the way we do about snowbirds.

The war with North Carolina would have to take place in summer, when roughly half Florida's population is up there. Finally some mountains to call our own. Cuba: Castro is getting old. The Cuban people are getting restless. Plus the dictatorship can't exactly count on Russian communists to help prop it up anymore.

Yes, Cuba is definitely ripe for an invasion. But Lawton, you'd better act now. It's a presidential election' year. Bush just might beat you to it. Carter, Chiles and medical director Rodriguez meet at an Orange County public health office to discuss vaccinations for children.

3 VI Ps want kids to get their shots By Delthia Ricks OF THE SENTINEL STAFF Low vaccination rates and a rising number of deaths from preventable childhood diseases have sparked a movement to achieve a fully immunized preschool population by the year 2000. Florida's first lady Rhea Chiles, joined by former first lady Rosa-lynn Carter and Betty Bumpers of Arkansas, put a Florida emphasis Tuesday on a plan Carter and Bumpers are promoting across the country. Bumpers is married to Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark. The women toured an Orange County public health unit and talked to parents about the benefits of having their children vaccinated.

Measles outbreaks have caught health officials by surprise. Doctors thought the disease was conquered more than a decade ago. "When I read in the paper that there were measles epidemics I was shocked," said Carter, who had organized an immunization program with Bumpers in the 1970s. The program resulted in 90 percent of all preschoolers in the country being fully vaccinated. "The children who are getting sick' and dying are the babies," Carter said.

"We are trying to find a way to reach the babies. Most of the babies are in our poverty areas." JOHN RAOUXSENTINEL Public Health Unit. "Measles is most striking of the rising lumber of childhood diseases because it has the most serious consequences more serious than mumps for small children." In 1990, Florida had one of its worst measles outbreaks in a decade with 603 confirmed cases. State health officials, who are still tabulating last year's measles data, expect upward of 450 cases. The most recent random survey of 2-year-olds in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Brevard and Volusia counties show that immunization rates increased dramatically in 1991 compared with 1990.

About 72 percent of all 2-year-olds were found to be vaccinated. Dr. Mercedes Rodriguez, executive medical director of Orange County's health unit, has just applied for a $150,000 CDC grant that would help track immunization compliance countywide. in drug case Books on explosives seized from chemist charged By Jim Leusner OF THE SENTINEL STAFF 50-year-olds get surprises A new family' By Darryl E. Owens OF THE SENTINEL STAFF Bruce Cashion was watching the television show Unsolved Mysteries when a story about twins whiT were separated from their biological mother came on the air.

-Aa thought struck him. "I thought wouldn't it be funriy' if me and Barbara his twin sister.1 were them, not thinking it was" possible," said Cashion, who lives in Orlando's College Park neigh-' borhood. Two weeks ago, the twins qi'; covered it wasn't an absurd rib-, tion. They learned they'd beerl adopted 50 years ago and their siblings were looking or, them. The Orlando Sentinel wrote" about the search in 1989.

"I was in shock," said Barbara Cashion. "I started crying said this can't be true. Somebody had to prove it to me." The proof was sealed. State law' kept their adoption papers away. But with a lawyer's helpj the seal was cracked.

The twins met their "new" fam-, ily last Friday in Orlando. "I'm very excited that with my5 other brothers and sisters I can, learn about and find myself in! them," said Barbara Cashion, whcr works at Woolworth's in Colonial Plaza. "It was like seeing myself in the mirror," said Bruce Cashion. The Cashions' odyssey began in January 1942 when the 2Vfe pound twins were born. Their mother, Calista Katherine Scribner, named them Paul and Paula.

She wanted to take them i home to Lockhart so her other four children could see them. They never made it. Hard times 1 forced her to give up the babies I for adoption. The twins were adopted by an Orlando couple, Franklin and Elma Cashion, who died in the early 1980s. i Soon after the Scribner's husband left her.

Two children went to orphanages and two went to a boys' home. She re-, married, improved her fortune and regained her children ex- cept the twins. Scribner always hoped for a re-', union, but she died in 1979, never knowing the twins' fate. Her daughter, Jean Taylor, and Jean's daughter, Gena Urbanek, both of Alabama, continued the search. tion.

Forrester tried unsuccessful-1 ly to get court officials to give her father a longer sentence after he pleaded guilty to committing a lewd or lascivious act in the pres- i ence of a child. 1 Car skids into pickup 2 dead, including activist ST. CLOUD A car skidding out of control on a dark, rainy stretch of highway smashed into a pickup truck, killing two people and injuring a third, the Florida Highway Patrol reported Tuesday. Killed in the Monday night acci- dent were Kathren "Kitty" Lawson, -1 42, a local activist in child abuse is- sues, and her passenger, Robert W. Patten, 50, both of St.

Cloud. They were on their way to a dart tournament in Kissimmee when their car skidded out of control and into a truck driven by Ste-phen Lynn, 22, of Orlando, accord- ing to FHP. I Lynn, who was alone in his truck, suffered a broken nose and 1 bruises. Lawson was a member of the Child Abuse Prevention Task Force, a local group trying to open a shelter for runaway children. i an avid reader or something more.

a pilot whose plane also was by investigators, has traveled extensively overseas. He made numerous trips to Rica in recent years and last year the Philippines and Hong Kong, Castillo said. records show Burleson has operated cleaning supply and chemical companies, Ingram Trading Co. and Chem-Tech-nique since 1988. Investigators say both were used as fronts to obtain needed to manufacture Aminorex.

moved into the quiet Lake neighborhood in April 1990, said Tom Kline. Burleson left home returned late at night. He had few Kline said. was the kind of person who you get friendly with," Kline said. "He didn't want to become close to anybody, seemed to me." ida, which he received in 1987.

Burleson, who was jailed on $1 million bond, has declined comment. He is accused of manufacturing the drug and building his organization starting in 1984 while at UF, said FDLE agent Nick Del Castillo. He also interned or worked as a pharmacist in the Orlando area in 1984 and late 1986, state licensing records show. Agents have investigated Burleson for the past 18 months, but they were stunned to find explosive chemicals and military manuals. Sheriffs Sgt.

Jon Swanson said several Soldier of Fortune magazines also were seen inside the home, along with a photo of Burleson in a U.S. Army uniform with an airborne insignia. An Army spokesman confirmed Tuesday that Burleson served in the military. After poring over the seized material, investigators said they are wondering if the man nicknamed "Dr. Ted, the Pilot" was At an Orlando press conference Tuesday to announce 13 arrests in the case, investigators from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Sheriffs Office displayed a sampling of the reading material from Burleson's lakefront home: Getting Started In The Illicit Drug Business; Psychedelic Chemistry; Secrets of Methamphe-tamine; Kitchen Improvised Plastic Explosives; and Expedient Hand Grenades.

Seized from the home was a MAC-10 machine gun with a silencer, IV2 ounces of a powder believed to be Aminorex, a federal drug investigator's manual, scales and assorted chemistry equipment and formulas, investigators said. Burleson, a 1967 graduate of Lyman High School in Longwood, received a chemistry degree from the University of Tennessee before moving to Gainesville in 1984. There, he began work on a doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Flor One day after they seized hazardous chemicals from the home of an Orlando chemist accused of running a drug ring, investigators were trying to figure out why he had a library of books on explosives and booby traps. "He could have invented something that was a doomsday machine," said Orange County Sheriff Walt Gallagher. "It's scary." On Monday, pharmacist and chemist Ted Burleson, 42, was arrested on charges of running a ring that since 1984 manufactured hundreds of pounds of the illegal stimulant Aminorex.

A hazardous materials team and bomb squad from the Orlando Fire Department later removed several containers of explosive chemicals from 601 Lake Como Circle. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimate about 100 measles deaths nationwide in 1990. Two of those deaths occurred in Florida. Also that year, 13 Florida children died of haemo-philus-B influenza, three of whooping cough and one because of diphtheria. None of the deaths occurred in Central Florida.

Last year in Florida, 10 deaths were attributed to haemophilus-B influenza and one to measles. Experts said all could have been prevented through vaccinations, which doctors usually recommend starting at the age of 2 months. Carter, Bumpers and Chiles all acknowledged the importance of getting children vaccinated, but public health officials said the job invariably falls on their shoulders. "The number of measles cases is going up, and that's disheartening," said Dr. Victor Harris, administrator of the Orange County The tourism council's meeting is to be held at 5:30 p.m.

in the Lake County Commission chambers at the county courthouse on Main Street in Tavares. Altoona-area ranch hosts would-be Olympic riders ALTOONA Some riders on the trail to the Summer Olympics hope to rack up points toward their goal during spring trials this weekend at a north Lake County horse ranch. About 140 equestrians from across the country are expected to converge on the Rocking Horse Ranch for what's called a "combined training" event. Expected to attend are a dozen or more who have a shot at earning a place on the U.S. Olympic Equestrian Team, ranch operator Shelley Howerton said.

Combined training as an Olympic event incorporates dressage, jumping, and cross-country riding. The events Saturday and Sunday will give Central Floridians a chance to get a look at top riders. Rocking Horse Ranch is on State Road 19 just north of Altoo- merely Burleson, seized Costa went to Del Corporate two companies chemicals Burleson Como neighbor early and visitors, "He couldn't just it of money and fled on foot. He is white, heavy-set with brown hair, a mustache and beard. He wore sunglasses, a cap, a dark T-shirt and jeans.

Anyone with information should contact the Altamonte investigations bureau at 830-3826. Council to discuss Lake's bid for spring training TAVARES A progress report on Lake County's effort to land a major league team for spring training is to be given during today's Tourist Development Council meeting. In December, Lake submitted a proposal to host spring training for the Florida Marlins, one of two expansion baseball franchises. The county is offering part of a 285-acre site it holds off Florida's Turnpike at U.S. Highway 27 and State Road 19.

The Marlins are almost two months past their initial Jan. 15 deadline to announce a training site. Some of today's discussion by the tourism board is to focus on the creation of a Lake County task na. The U.S. Equestrian Team trained at the ranch for the 1988 Olympics and the 1989 world championships.

This weekend's events are free and open to the public. The trials begin at 8 a.m. Saturday and continue until about 6:30 p.m. The events Sunday will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Network TV show deals with Lake child-sex case TAVARES A network television show is to broadcast a segment Thursday night that partially deals with a Lake County sex crime case. CBS' Street Stories is to air at 9 p.m. on WCPX-TV Channel 6. This segment concerns the efforts of a Philadelphia-area woman to intervene in a lewd and lascivious sex crime case in which her father pleaded guilty. Kathie Lee Forrester, 34, and her sister have said they and a brother were sexually abused as children.

Forrester's father, Asa Eric Culver, 56, of Tavares, recently was sentenced to 60 days in the Lake County jail and 10 years proba DeLand gunman takes bank's cash, teller's car DELAND An armed man wearing a stocking mask robbed a bank here Tuesday morning and escaped in a car owned by one of the tellers. A man walked into Barnett Bank at 3101 N. Woodland Blvd. at about 9:30 a.m., jumped over the front counter, aimed a silver-colored gun at the tellers and ordered everyone in the bank to get down on the floor, a Volusia County sheriffs report said. He grabbed money from tellers' cash drawers and stuffed an undetermined amount into a bag.

He then drove off in a teller's four-door, silver Omni hatchback. He was followed for a time by a bank customer. Deputies later found the car abandoned in woods near Trails West subdivision, along with gloves, mask and black T-shirt. The suspect's footprints were followed to the Lakeside subdivision, where investigators believe he was picked up by another person. The robber is described as a white male, 5-feet 10-inches tall, about 180 pounds with a husky build.

Anyone with information should contact Investigator J.R. Johnson at (904) 822-5781. Police search for tips on Altamonte bank robber ALTAMONTE SPRINGS Police are asking for help in identifying a suspect in a Feb. 20 bank robbery. The man walked into the Glendale Federal Bank, 478 E.

State Road 436, about 12:47 p.m., showed a teller a gun and demanded money. He was closed amount P6" I V..