Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 12

A2 Daily PressThe Times-Herald. Saturday, Oct. 13, 1984 Weather looks good for space shuttle landing CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) The Challenger astronauts, their spirits high, spent their last full day in space Friday photographing Earth, stowing their gear and speaking with President Reagan on his campaign tour. Astronaut Kathy Sullivan told the president that her spacewalk "was the most fantastic experience of my life," and Sally Ride said that flying in space was just as much fun the second time around.

"Hope it will be more fun the third time," she said. to the north, the weather looked good for a 12:26 p.m. landing at Kennedy Space Center today. The evening forecast said there would be no winds across the runway, removing a concern. Challenger's Earth-observation tasks continued until the crew went to sleep and Mission Control said the astronauts' radar photography captured 21 of 22 targets before the device was shut down.

"Almost 100 percent of the science objectives," said Mission Control. Despite early antenna problems, first on the radar device and then on the shuttle it self, scientists got more than one-third of the data they hoped for on the flight. It will be a year, probably, before the pictures are published. "The weather is looking mighty pretty at the Cape," commander Robert Crippen said as Challenger flew over Florida. He said he could make out the building where the shuttle is attached to its booster rockets and fuel tank for flight.

Now that the shuttle is on a flight-a-month schedule, NASA is eager to make landings routine in Florida to shave up to a week from the time it takes to get the spaceplane ready for its next flight. Florida's changeable weather has interfered with two of the three previous landings scheduled for Kennedy. Crippen was in command of both flights, which ended with touchdown on the desert strip at Edwards Air Force Base in California. If for some reason the shuttle can't land in Florida today, officials had the option of extending the flight one day and trying again Sunday. Any problem then, however, would force the shuttle to come down at Edwards.

Satellite salvagers 'ready SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) Five astronauts slated for Discovery's November flight said Friday that they are ready for the shuttle's most complex and daring salvage mission ever, in which they will pluck two crippled satellites from orbit and return them to Earth. "We feel like we're ready," said Fredrick H. Hauck, the commander for the space shuttle mission set for launch Nov. 7, "We started actively planning in April. (But) we're comfortable with it," he said at the astronauts' final news conference before their mission.

vv mi uui iiicuie juaeimuc iai Announcer's murder led to chair Wesiitlln0 The Forecast for 8 D.m. EDT. Oct. 13 r- 1 0 v- H' -r-0 pa' J---" I tf1 ei.ii. r' 1 LJK lemperaiures gQ- FRONTS: Warnr-w Cotd- Occluded Stationary i Snowers Rain Flurries Snow Gallaher shown in broadcast booth before his death.

-f By BOB EVANS Staff Writer RICHMOND Linwood Briley's short walk to the electric chair Friday night was the last in a trail that began Sept. 14, 1979, when a Richmond disc jockey and musician strolled outside a dance hall for some fresh air. John "Johnny Gallaher and his band were playing at the Log Cabin that night, and shortly after stepping out the back door of the Southside Richmond club between songs, he found himself face down in the dirt. Briley, his brother and Duncan Meekins, then 16, had been cruising the area looking for "somebody to mug," Meekins later told police. Frustrated by the lack of an easy victim, they hid in some bushes with a shotgun and deer rifle until Gallaher came along.

After Linwood Briley knocked Gallaher down and took his wallet and car keys, the trio forced the musician onto the floor in the back of his own Lincoln Continental and went for a ride. Briley drove to a paper plant on nearby Mayo Island in the James River. While being dragged out of the car, Meekins said, Gallaher started to fight back. Briley responded by shooting Gallaher in the back with the rifle. Gallaher's body was found two days later on a river bank.

Meekins was arrested 36 days later and implicated Briley in the murder. When 15 police cars came to arrest Briley, he was wearing Gallaher's ring. Gallaher's isn't the only blood police and several juries said Briley had on his hands. In 1971, at age 16, "I was shooting at birds that were flying down at dog food and then back up into the trees" with a rifle outside his Richmond home, Briley told a Richmond newspaper last month. One of those "five or six bullets" killed an elderly woman across the street, and Briley went to prison for his first murder, that one unpremeditated.

5 At the time, Briley told police the woman would have died anyway because she had a heart problem. In 1979, police and Meekins said, Briley went on a rampage of death that took at least nine lives in six months. Those crimes included the robberies and rapes of young and elderly people, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman, the beating death of a 76-year-old woman and her 59-year-old husband, who was left with seven knife blades in his body. National Weather Service NOAA, U.S. Oeot of Commerce Cloudy, utile! Partly cloudy today.

Highs will be in the low 70s. Fair tonight with lows in the low to mid-50s. Mostly sunny Sunday, with highs in the mid-70s. Harbor winds will be northerly at 10 to 20 mph today, 10 mph or less tonight and becoming light and variable by Sunday. For the 24-hour period ending 7:30 p.m.

Friday, high was 73 (23 C), low was 58 (14 C). Temperature at 7:30 was 64 (18 C). No precipitation. Particulate Coefficient of Haze Index: 18 (good). Pollen 1-day-count: .4 (low).

Monday through Wednesday: Sunny days and fair nights through the period. The daytime highs will average in the mid-70s. The overnight lows will average 55 to 60. National Weather Service broadcasts of forecasts and warnings for the Hampton Roads area can be heard 24 hours a day on VHF FM 162.55 MHz. TIME AND TIDE Briley also killed a 17-year-old allegedly trying to break into his car, crushing the boy's skull with a rock.

Later, Briley said he knew only one of those people. Briley already had been given seven life sentences in those murders when a jury recommended a death penalty for the Gallaher case in 1980. That jury decided Briley's past indicated he was a "continuing threat to society," one of two reasons a murderer can be sentenced to death in Virginia. The other requires that the murder be "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman, in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or aggravated battery to the victim beyond the minimum necessary to accomplish the act of Like all those sentenced had an automatic right to appeal to the state Supreme Court. The court denied his appeal in 1981, when the court decided Briley didn't have a right to tell the jury at his trial about Meekins' receiving a life sentence in return for testifying against him.

Two more appeals to the state Supreme Court and three trips up the ladder of federal courts not including a fourth, last-ditch appeal to U.S. Supreme Court Judge Warren Burger this week delayed Briley's walk to the electric chair. During the four years since the Gallaher trial, Briley has known freedom only 19 days, the result of his escape, with five other inmates, from death row at Mecklen- AP photos Briley's mother, Bertha Briley, prepares to enter the state penitentiary Friday. burg May 31. The largest escape of death sentence prisoners in American history was planned largely by Briley, those who participated said.

Briley was the last to be found in a search that reached from North Carolina to Canada. He and his brother were found barbecuing chicken outside a Philadelphia garage. 'Aside from the shooting of the elderly woman, Briley has maintained his innocence of murders. Those who knew him have recounted his boyhood and adult fascination with snakes, piranha fish, a tarantula spider and large, mean, dogs. Briley denied most of those tales but admitted the snake and spider were valued pets.

The snake, "about 12 or 13 inches long was just exciting for the kids to see how it would eat white mice, you know, little bitty mice." Sunset 6:31 p.m. AM PM PM Low High Low 5:34 11:58 6:19 3:27 10:18 4:12 4:22 11:24 5:07 4:37 11:29 5:22 9:03 2:55 9:48 4:42 11:24 5:27 5:38 6:23 6:46 12:55 7:31 5:29 11:50 6:14 5:55 12:21 6:40 5:52 12:17 6:37 5:18 6:03 6:39 10:59 7:24 6:16 12:38 7:01 5:56 12:14 6:41 7:02 1:34 7:47 8:36 2:42 9:21 4:02 10:46 4:47 5:38 12:08 6:23 7:10 a.m. TIDES AM High Cap Charles .....11:43 Cope Hatteras 10:03 Cope ,...,.11:09 Fishermans Island 11:14 Jamestown 2:35 Little Creek 11:09 Lvnnhaven Inlet 11:48 Menchvllle 12:35 AAobiock-E. 11:35 Newport News 12:01 Nfk. Nav.

Shipyard Old Point Comft 11:53 Oregon Inlet 10:44 Penniman Spit 12:18 Port Norfolk Suffolk 1:14 Urbanno 2:22 Va. Beach 10:31 York town The weather elsewhere By The Associated Press Crowds gather outside prison Mpls-St Paul 69 59 ,01 cdv Nashville 83 59 New Orleans 84 63 New York 71 57 Norfolk.Vo 70 61 Orlando 65 67 Philadelphia 71 50 Phoenix 85 69 .02 cdv clr clr clr clr clr clr rn Pittsburgh 71 51 .19 64 48 Providence 75 45 Raleigh 75 Richmond 75 54 53 cdv clr clr .07 cdv clr Friday HI Lo Pre Otlk Anchorage 46 31 .05 clr Ashevllle 76 44 cdv Atlanta 80 60 clr Atlantic City 67 55 Clr Baltimore 76 49 clr Boston 70 50 cdy Buffalo 65 42 clr Chorleston.S.C. 77 49 clr Charleslon.W.V 64 55 cdv Charlolte.N.C 79 52 clr Chlcaoo 71 54 cdv Cincinnati 69 57 cdv Dallas-Ft Worth 82 67 .17 rn Denver 74 49 cdv Des Moines 75 59 rn Detroit 66 52 Cdv Fairbanks 36 29 clr Honolulu 89 77 clr Houston 82 70 rn Indianapolis 72 59 cdv Los Veoos 78 59 clr Los Angeles 91 62 clr Louisville 77 61 rn Miami Beach 82 v3 clr Milwaukee 59 51 rn 63 66 St Louis 72 St Pete-Tampa 84 Salt Lake City 56 43 San Diego 75 66 San Francisco 73 56 Seattle 58 45 Tulsa 75 66 Washington 77 54 rn clr clr rn cdv clr Pre Precipitation for 24 hours ending 7 p.m. Friday. Otlk Sky conditions outlook for today.

Virginia zone forecasts said. About 8 p.m., Briley's telephone calls were interruped for a short time while his head was shaved. During the night, people outside the prison grounds a half block away, passed out leaflets, including membership applications to "Virginians Against the Death Penalty." About 150 people had "gathered by 9:30 p.m., some bearing candles and placards. 4 Several others wore large, homemade badges, each bearing the name of a Virginia death row inmate and their victim. Jerome Gorman, a member of Virginians Against the Death Penalty, said the badges were worn because it is important to remember the families of the victims.

Nearby, two nuns carried placards. One read "Electric Euthanasia, a Vepco Service." The other read "Kill Poverty, Not Poor People." Chuck Barrett, a Lutheran social services worker, said he had visited inmates at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center earlier Friday and they were "fasting and praying today to show their solidarity" with Briley. an open room. She said he appeared to be in pain from having his hands tightly shackled behind his back, so she cut the talk short. The visits ended at 4 p.m.

after which Briley talked by phone with other friends and relatives, including his two brothers who are also in prison. One of those brothers, James, is appealing two death sentences of his own. Briley has been watched continuously by an "execution team of experienced, trained, mature" guards since 11 p.m. Thursday and the visits were no exception, Farrar said. His appointments were so many that Briley had time only to eat dinner Friday, Farrar said.

The last meal request was offered but "he said he didn't want anything special, he just wanted what everyone else had," Farrar said. Someone in the prison kitchen had a different idea, so instead of the fried chicken others ate, Briley was served grilled tenderloin steak, a baked potato, green peas and a salad with french dressing. Rolls with butter, cake and peaches were also set before Briley along with punch and milk. "I could not find out whether he finished it or not," Farrar heeded by Gov. Charles S.

Robb, who was in his Capitol office when Briley was executed in the penitentiary, about a mile away on the fringe of the city's downtown. At the hour of execution, David McCloud, Robb's chief of staff, came into his office to report that Landon said they were ready to proceed. Robb told McCloud to tell Landon "Proceed with the order of the court." George Stoddart, Robb's press secretary, described Robb as "businesslike and professional." Asked if his demeanor was subdued, Stoddart said, "I guess you could say that." All but the eight witnesses, prison personnel, relatives and Briley's attorneys were kept away from the three-story white stone building where the execution was to take place throughout the night. Farrar said Briley spent a busy day meeting with attorneys, friends, his mother, his son and girlfriend and other relatives. All but his mother, who got a hug, and Ms.

Wyatt spent their visiting time separated from Briley by a glass partition, talking via telephone. Ms. Wyatt, of Charlottesville, said Briley was handcuffed throughout their appointment in By The Associated Press Eastern Shore, Greater Hampton Roads Partly cloudy today with highs in the low 70s. Fair tonight with lows in the low to mid 50s. Mostly sunny and mild Sunday.

Highs in the mid 70s. Interior Southeast, Central Tidewater, Northern Piedmont Foothills, Central Virginia, Southeastern and Southwestern Piedmont, Southern and Central Foothills, Southern Shenandoah Valley Mostly sunny and mild today. Highs in the mid 70s. Fair tonight with patchy dense fog. Lows around 50.

Mostly sunny Sunday and con tinued mild. Highs in the mid 70s. Northern and Central Shenandoah Valley. West Central Highlands Morning fog today followed by afternoon sunshine. Highs around 70.

Dense fog again tonight. Lows in the mid to upper 40s. Morning fog Sunday followed by after-- noon sunshine. Highs around 70. Southern Highlands, Southwestern Mountains Mostly sunny and mild today.

Highs in the low 70s. Fair tonight with patchy dense fog. Lows in the mid to upper 40s. Mostly sunny and continued mild Sunday. Highs in the low 70s.

Continued from Page Al to counter an anti-death penalty vigil along the crowded street. Police had to disperse that crowd. The last time there was an execution in Virginia, Frank Cop-polla waived his right to appeals and died in 1982. Then, only a small crowd gathered, nearly all opposed to the death sentence. Briley's claims of innocence and his fighting of his death sentence brought between 400 to 500 people to the fringes of the prison, slightly more in favor of the state's action than against.

After some pushing, and taunting between the two groups, police segregated them on either side of Belvedere Street. Two of that roadway's four lanes became clogged with protesters at various times, and police used dogs to help control the crowds. Shortly before the execution, an ambulance's light and siren came to life; many thinking this was Briley's hearse, cheered. When the word came that Briley was dead, many of those who came to mourn him dropped to the sidewalk in prayer. Many of those who wished Briley dead cheered again, some shouting repeatedly "Burn Briley burn." Richmond police reported no injuries or arrests and the crowds were gone 30 minutes after the announcement of the execution was made.

His body was taken from the prison in an ambulance at 11:22 p.m. with a State Police car trailing behind. His legal appeals were exhausted and his lawyer's plea Friday for clemency went un-- jMnMwsa The Times-Herald araausnoa i vw Established 1896 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Sawyer-Perguson-Walker Company 245 Pork Avenue, New York, Y. 10017 MEMBER OF MAJOR NEWS SERVICES AND AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATION Weekly Delivery lotm By Carrier and Motor Roulei Morning 6 Sunday Morning Only Sun. Only Weekend jl 60 90t 70 8i Moil MrbKriplioni are payable in odvonce.

MaH tubMriphoM ore not available in oreot serviced by Getting It straight i In Memory of FLOYD E. I LITTLE, SR. Who departed this Irft October 13, 1979 We know you are up there in Heaven. There it no other place for you but with the good Lord. Your friendly smile to each and everyone, your gift to help others will always be remembered.

We all miss you very much. May you rest in peace. Sadly misted by Wife Mr. Julio L. Little and Family Publication Identification No.

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Newport Newt, Virginia 23607 Thursday in the Daily Press and The Times-Herald, the program will be at 2 p.m. today at the Williamsburg Regional Library, 515 Scotland St. It will consist of a puppet-live actor show followed by a MAI1 SUISCHIPTIQN HATES I Year 6 MonltH 3 Monthi I Month MORNING 6 SUNDAY SI 17 30 $65 00 $33 70 S14.40 MORNING ONLY 87 40 $4870 $28 50 $10 20 WEEKEND 72,70 $45.10 $23.55 $10.60 SUNDAY ONIY 62. lo $37 00 I $23.80 $9.00 Clarifications and corrections in the Daily Press will appear as soon as possible. They will usually be on Page 2.

Today we have one item: The time of a fire prevention program was incorrect in the Your Neighbors sections published Wednesday STUDENTS ond MU.IAHY PERSONNEL. Deduct 20 from above rotei. (Moil lubtcriptioni only)..