The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 14

Other news to note Compiled from wire reports A-14 The Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, March 18, 1995 METRO 5 Father's in jail but town wants to find boy's body ASSOCIATED PRESS I he moved his family in 1992 and worked as an insurance salesman. The verdict "doesn't settle anything," said Marriott, a bird breeder and mechanic. "It just says more people than us thought he was guilty." Gibson's wife, Judy, took their three daughters and moved out last year, leaving her estranged husband to move in with his grandmother in Montana. Then Gibson's 8-year-old daughter, Karen, told authorities in April she had seen her father hit Tommy, load him in the back of his patrol car and drive away the day the boy disappeared. It was the first evidence hard enough to bring an indictment, and Gibson was charged.

She was the prosecution's star witness in the six-week trial, testifying while holding a teddy bear. Alan Scott, Gibson's lawyer, said Gibson maintains his innocence and he will appeal. "I know he wants the search to continue for Tommy," Scott said. Gibson, scheduled to be sentenced Monday, stands to be released in a matter of months. Sentencing guidelines call for only 15 to 18 months, and Gibson has already been in jail about a year.

GLENDALE, Ore. For the people who have never given up trying to find little Tommy Gibson, there is only one way to really settle things: tell them where the boy's body is. "I wish he would own up to it so we could find the child and put him away right," said Ron Marriott, who has been searching for Tommy since the 2V-year-old disappeared in 1991. "That would clean it all up." The boy's father, Larry Gibson, was convicted of manslaughter Thursday. The former deputy sheriff in this southern Oregon timber town had been charged with murder.

Gibson, 34, claimed he last saw Tommy playing alone in the yard when he went for a jog. The body was never found. District Attorney Ted Zacher argued that Gibson had a history of abusing his children and killed his son in a rage after the boy disobeyed orders to stay near the house when Gibson shot a neighbor's cat. A suspect from the beginning, Gibson was arrested in April in Montana, where Oklahoma set to execute killer on Sunday night MCALESTER, Okla. Thomas Grasso, the condemned murderer who was caught in a tug-of-war between two states, is set to become the 87th man executed by Oklahoma shortly after midnight Sunday.

Grasso, 32, would be the fourth to die by lethal injection in the state. Convicted in New York for the 1991 murder of an 82-year-old Staten Island man, Grasso also had pleaded guilty to murdering an elderly woman in Tulsa, in 1990. Grasso had said he preferred to die in Oklahoma rather than serve out his 20-year-to-life sentence in New York. Glaxo chairman says he'll run against Helms GREENVILLE, N.C. The chairman of Glaxo board of directors plans to seek the Democratic nomination to oppose Sen.

Jesse Helms in 1996. Charles Sanders, a former physician, said that issues are being polarized by liberal or conservative philosophies when they should be examined for cost-effective solutions. "I don't like labels," he said Thursday. "I don't like liberal, or conservative, or ideological. If you want to call me anything, call me practical." Helms, a Republican, was first elected to the Senate in 1972.

It's a bird, it's a dish Prosecutor Ted Zacher, answering reporters' of abusing questions, said Larry Gibson had a history a rage after York City police Officer Carol Shaya, who was fired last week for posing nude in Playboy magazine, took quick action when she witnessed an attempted robbery in a trendy eatery. Shaya helped disarm a knife-wielding bandit before police officers arrived to make an arrest Wednesday night, said Rocco Ancarola, the restaurant's owner. The man had tried to steal $50 off the bar, police said. Police Commissioner William Bratton fired Shaya on March 7 for posing nude with handcuffs, gun and nightstick in a Playboy pictorial entitled NYPD Nude. Police officials had scoffed that Shaya, 25, made only a handful of arrests during her four years on the force.

They refused to comment on the restaurant incident. Manufacturer seeks to rid cities of 'free' parking PHILADELPHIA Vincent Yost wants to kill one of life's little joys finding a parking spot with time left on the meter. The suburban Philadelphia entrepreneur is testing meters that erase leftover time when a car pulls ft F- lit 'V. sat on her until police arrived. "I think their first clue was when they saw 'Sears' on the end of the garage-door opener," said Police Chief Galen Ash.

Paluszak, 47, was charged with unarmed bank robbery. Environmentalists threaten lawsuit to save redwoods SACRAMENTO, Calif. Environmentalists say they'll go to court unless the governor intervenes to hold up salvage logging in the last privately owned stand of ancient redwoods. The Sierra Club said it wants Gov. Pete Wilson to honor his pledge to protect the forest by requiring a timber harvesting plan before logging can begin on the tract on California's northern coast.

The Department of ducting a preliminary investigation into the case of a Philippine man whose comments to the FBI prompted retired Gen. Michael Cams to withdraw as nominee to be CIA director. Investigators are looking into Elbino Runas' "immigration status and into the facts of the case to determine whether Cams committed immigration fraud," spokesman Rudy Brew-ington said Friday. Immigration officers are trying to locate Runas for an interview. If Runas turns out to be here illegally, they would move to deport him.

Last week, Cams withdrew his nomination to succeed James Woolsey as CIA director because of information Runas gave the FBI during a background check. Democrats lose 1 more Nebraska senator to retire Democrats suffered another setback Friday in their increasingly daunting drive to regain control of the Senate as Sen. James Exon of Nebraska became the third Democrat to announce he won't seek re-election. Exon cited "the ever-increasing vicious polarization of the electorate" as 5 and it tastes just like beef HOUSTON A Texas rancher began supplying American-bred emu to local grocery store chains Friday, becoming among the first processors to supply domestic emu meat to U.S. grocers.

David "Rocky" DeMarco says Texas is the first step to building a national market for the low-fat red meat of the emu, an ostrichlike bird that can't fly. "This stuff is like a very lean beef in texture and taste, but it's 97 percent fat free," DeMarco says of his prime cuts, which cost $11.99 a pound. Sister act sells its stake in small savings and loan CHARLESTON, W.Va. Identical twins Maye Smith and Faye Hudson are finally out of the if" ASSOCIATED PRESS his children and killed his son in the boy disobeyed his orders. Forestry and Fire Protection on Wednesday accepted Pacific Lumber proposal to remove dead, dying and diseased trees from the Humboldt County land.

Assistant Resources Secretary Terry Gorton said no healthy trees will be cut. Brazilians arrest suspect in Seattle fire that killed 4 SEATTLE A man accused of setting a Seattle warehouse fire that killed four firefighters has been arrested at the Brazilian beachfront resort of Copacabana. Martin Pang was apprehended peacefully Thursday night, said Rogerio Said, a Brazilian federal police officer in Rio. Pang, 39, was charged with four counts of murder and arson after the Jan. fire at his parents' warehouse.

Investigators say he had hoped to gain financially from the fire, presumably from insurance. Authorities did not know when he might be returned to the United States. Pang recently sent a videotape to a Seattle television station proclaiming his innocence. his main reason for retiring at age 73 after three terms. National and state Republicans immediately vowed an all-out effort to capture the seat and build on their new Senate majority.

Democrats lost control of the Senate in the last election. Since then their 48-member caucus has dwindled to 46, with Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado switching to the Republican Party. 'Contract' extreme attack on environment, Gore says Vice President Al Gore assailed congressional Republicans' "Contract With America" agenda Friday as "the most extreme and concerted assault on the environment in history." In a speech on global warming, Gore said legislation approved by the House to roll back federal regulations "is a deliberate attack" on decades of environmental laws. The vice president's remarks came after President Clinton sought to blunt the deregulation fervor in Congress by promising to make it easier for businesses to comply with rules on drugs, medical devices and the banking business at age 71, selling their 102-year-old savings and loan to a big chain.

Smith, president and chief executive of the Point Pleasant Federal Savings Bank; and Hudson, vice president and secretary, turned over their one-branch to Charleston's One Valley Bancorp this week. While other collapsed in the late 1980s, theirs grew to $57 million at the end of 1994, from $2 million when Smith started working there as a teller in 1952. Smith attributed the thrift's success to conservative banking: They had one branch and avoided risky loans. Cop fired for posing nude makes collar in restaurant NEW YORK Former New Court battle Hit VH-f- Jf, I 1 (' 1 out of a spot. The meters use infrared sensors and lithium-powered computer chips to "see" parking spaces.

"There's nothing free about it," Yost says proudly. The goal is for towns to boost parking revenue without raising rates. Woman tries to rob bank with garage-door opener BOWLING GREEN, Ohio A woman who told bank tellers she was holding a device that controlled a bomb in her car actually was carrying a garage-door opener, police said. Jacqueline Paluszak demanded money from three tellers at a Mid Am Bank branch just before closing time Wednesday. After the tellers realized what her "weapon" was, they forced her to the floor and Marianne Gingrich, other wives seek job ethics reform WASHINGTON Marianne Gingrich, wife of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is among several congressional wives who want a review of House ethics standards that concern their own employment.

Among the proposals the women want considered is a measure that would allow them to serve on their husbands' staffs. The request, submitted Thursday to House Ethics Committee Chairwoman Nancy Johnson, was prompted by the frustration some women experience when they move to Washington and discover a city full of employers worried about conflicts of interest Marianne Gingrich has been criticized for taking a job recruiting U.S. companies for tax-free zones in Israel even though the ethics panel has approved her position. Immigration investigates man linked to CIA nominee Immigration officials are con-. i i i i d'Mifc: r.x Winnie Mandela, estranged wife of South African President Nelson Mandela, greets supporters outside the Rand Supreme Court in Johannesburg Friday.

She is challenging the validity of search warrants used by police in raids on her home and offices 3 weeks ago. Serbs allow aid convoy through to besieged Bihac SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina A U.N. convoy entered northwest Bosnia to relieve drastic food shortages on Friday, but Croatian Serbs blocked Red Cross trucks also trying to bring food to the hungry. U.N. officials have warned of severe malnutrition and even starvation in the besieged Bihac enclave in the northwest, where about 200,000 people, most of them Muslims, depend solely on humanitarian aid.

Agency trucks carried 100 tons of beans, beef, yeast, cooking oil, flour and fish into the region, said a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Zagreb. She said the food convoy reached the Bihac pocket early Friday evening after crossing the last Serb checkpoint. It was the first time rebel Serbs allowed a convoy to move into the enclave on that route. Azerbaijan said to crush coup attempt by police BAKU, Azerbaijan Troops in Azerbaijan on Friday crushed a coup attempt by rebel police units against President Haydar Aliyev, the government said.

Russia's NTV independent television said up to 80 people had been killed in the fighting. Interfax news agency said 30 people had died No independent confirmation was available. The dead included Deputy Interior Minister Rovshan Javadov, who led the mutiny and was killed when government troops attacked a base outside the capital, Baku, where hundreds of rebels were holed up, Azeri authorities said. Cuba sees a slight rise in the number of tourists HAVANA Cuban authorities said Friday that 133,000 tourists visited the island in the first two months of 1995, a slight increase over the same period last year. Krays, starring Gary and Martin Kemp from the pop group Spandau Ballet.

ASSOCIATED PRESS 2 tal, Mexico City. Federal highway police said the bus was carrying at least 60 people. The legal limit is 45. Maria Dolores Campero, a police spokeswoman, said the bus was taking passengers from Izta-palapa in the Mexico City area to an annual fair in Tepalcingo, in the eastern part of Morelos state. Rerun of old hijack report sends police scrambling OSLO, Norway Police raced into action in northern Norway, and an airliner with 148 passengers aboard was painstakingly searched after a television network reported a hijacking.

The only problem the Thursday report was 4V4 months old and had been repeated by mistake. Police held the plane on the ground in Bodo while they searched it, causing a delay of nearly two hours. The TV-3 network offered to compensate the police and the airline. Deputy Tourism Minister Miguel Brugueras was quoted by the state news agency AIN as saying the figures were in line with predictions. Numbers were up for tourists from Canada, Italy, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, Mexico and Colombia, Brugueras said.

Visitors to the communist-ruled island totaled 630,000 last year, producing gross earnings of about $850 million. Cuba is seeking to boost the tourism industry as a key foreign exchange earner. Bus in Mexico sails off cliff 29 killed, 36 injured CUERNAVACA, Mexico A tourist bus carrying families to a fair sailed from a cliff north of this central Mexican city Friday morning, killing 29 people and injuring 36. The speeding bus failed to negotiate a dangerous turn known as "Devil's Curve" on a road between Cuernavaca and the nation's capi AHMAD KHOMEINI Khomeini, son of the late Aya-tollah Ruhollah Khomeini, died Friday. He was 50.

Khomeini "left for heavenly abode today, plunging the nation into gloom," the official Islamic Republic News Agency said. A cleric and politician, Khomeini had been in a coma for six days after suffering a Ronnie Kray dies twin gangster inspired movie LONDON Ronnie Kray, a convicted murderer who shared gangland notoriety and a 1990 movie with his twin brother, died Friday after collapsing in prison. He was 61. Kray fell ill at Broadmoor prison on Wednesday. Wexham Park Hospital in Slough said Kray died after a heart attack.

Kray and his twin brother, Reggie, ruled the London underworld from 1957 until they were convicted of murder in 1969. They began their professional careers as boxers and drifted into the protection racket. Like New York gangsters in the 1930s, they operated a series of nightclubs and hobnobbed with such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Joe Louis and Tony Bennett. Their life story was turned into a 1990 movie, The fnriJLfcLMn massive heart attack Sunday. Khomeini After years of living in the shadow of his father, Khomeini had been expected to try to seize power after the ayatollah's death on June 3, 1989.

But he remained largely in the shadows, apparently seeking to act as a power broker rather than pursue the political ambitions that he was known to harbor and that his father had frustrated. I.