Star-Gazette from Elmira, New York • 1

3 Today's COUPON ww Bowl pmmow BUPIRl VALUE Up to 'I Marv Levy's prediction1 How the teams Lloyd powers match up4C Steel Curtain5C 1 STII11B. Sunday Gazie FLURRIES High: 27 Low: 14 Details2A January 28, 1996 N.Y. EDITION SUMMER Police suspect imprisoned man for 1985 murder in Ovid police as far away as Utah and Florida. According to the Finger Lakes Times, a daily newspaper in Geneva, Harris burglarized South Seneca High School and Ovid Federated Church in August 1988 when he was 18. He pleaded guilty to both crimes and was sentenced to one year in Seneca County Jail.

Police ask anyone with information about the murder, no matter how insignificant it may seem, to call the command center at 607869-5264. By JIM PFIFFER Star-Gazette A man imprisoned at Rtkers Island is a suspect in the 1985 murder of Kristin O'Connell in Ovid. Eyewitness accounts and two strands of hair found on O'Con-nell's body have led investigators to Gary L. Harris, a former Ovid resident, who was 15 at the time of the murder. But it will be another month, when DNA laboratory results are completed, before investigators know for sure if Harris had contact with O'Connell.

"Harris was seen in the area where O'Connell was staying on the night of her murder," said Seneca County District Attorney Donna M. Cathy. "There were hairs found on the victim that were determined to be from an African-American." Harris, an African-American, was living on Chapman Street in Ovid when O'Connell was killed. Today, he's in jail on Rikers Island, in New York City, for violating parole. He was paroled after Police had hoped they could solve the case with new investigative tools like DNA analysis which were not available when the murder occurred.

Cathy wouldn't comment on whether Harris and O'Connell knew each other or if other suspects had blood or tissue samples taken for DNA analysis. Snyder said his team, which is working out of a cottage at the Willard Drug Treatment Campus in Ovid, has interviewed about 100 people. Those interviews have taken said Vincent J. Snyder, a senior New York State Police investigator in charge of a six-man team, formed six months ago, to work the O'Connell case. "I wish we could say we had a specific individual involved in the murder and were about to make an arrest," Snyder said.

"Right now we're just eliminating suspects. We've eliminated several." Investigators hope the lab results will determine if Harris' DNA matches DNA in the hairs found on the body, Cathy explained. iiiaiE Federal agency will open local office to help victims recover from flooding Him (D (ji In rvO 3 If in c-t serving a sentence for a robbery in New York City, Cathy said. O'Connell, a 20-year-old college student from Burnsville, was visiting friends in Ovid on Aug. 14, 1985 when she went for a walk, barefoot, around 11 p.m.

Her nude body was found two days later in a nearby cornfield. She had been stabbed and her throat slit. No one has been arrested Harris has not been charged with any crime in connection with the murder, Cathy said. He is one of "several suspects," V' i' ft'! tJ I Hp if Xt i 1 The Associated Press NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. Hoping to avoid a shootout, police tried to negotiate by telephone Saturday with a gun-collecting heir to the du Pont fortune who barricaded himself in his mansion after allegedly killing a wrestling coach.

A force of 75 officers, including three SWAT teams, surrounded the mansion on John E. du Pont's 800-acre estate in this Philadelphia suburb for a second day following Friday's slaying. Although acquaintances said du Pont had grown increasingly violent and eccentric and fancied himself a sort of "dalai lama," township Police Chief Michael Mallon said police knew of no motive for the shooting death of Olympic gold medalist Dave Schultz. Police Lt. Lee Hunter said police elected to wait out du Pont rather than attack for one reason: "We would be endangering the lives of our officers." "We Intend to take as long as it takes to resolve this problem without any other people being injured," Mallon said.

Just before 9 p.m., Delaware County Public Safety Director Bill Lovejoy said that police had continued to talk to du Pont throughout the day, but said negotiators saw no end to the standoff. "He has not agreed to surrender," By GARTH WADE Star-Gazette Barbara Ann Smith and hundreds of other Twin Tier residents will have to wait a few more days to find out what their government can do to help them recover from the Jan. 19 flood. The Federal Emergency Management Agency expects to have a local office set up perhaps as early as Tuesday to begin processing requests for help, Deputy Chemung County Executive Thomas J. Santulli said Saturday.

Smith, whose three-bedroom ranch home on Church Street in Wellsburg had a foot of water on the first floor, called FEMA Friday night and was told a representative would visit her in a week to 10 days. Now that several Twin Tier counties have been declared disaster areas, FEMA can give grants or make low-interest loans to repair flood damage. How much is available and who will qualify probably won't be known until the local FEMA office is in business, Santulli said. Smith said that based on her call to FEMA, she believes the form of any assistance will depend on a family's financial condition. "I got the impression that your financial position would have a bearing on whether you get an outright grant," she said.

Damage estimates continue to grow in at least two Twin Tiers counties. Santulli said Saturday that Chemung County's flood damage now totals $16.6 million, including $6.6 million to repair roads and bridges and $10 million to restore the estimated 200 homes and 25 businesses that were damaged. In Steuben County, the estimate is $10 million, Emergency Services Director Donald Merring said Saturday, $8 million for. roads and bridges and $2 million in private property. CHARLIE COFfTEZStar-Gazetta FLOOD LEFTOVERS: Like many Wellsburg homeowners, Barbara Smith of Church Street is slowly getting her house back in order.

A refrigerator and other debris sit in her front yard until she can dispose of it. Lovejoy said. "Police are prepared to spend the night." Du Pont, 57, owned a large cache of weapons and even a military armored personnel carrier, said his former business manager, Victor Krievins. There was no indication if the armored vehicle was still on the estate. He once taught marksmanship to local police officers and equipped the force with bulletproof vests.

"We don't know how many guns or how much ammunition he has," said police Sgt. Brian McNeill The shooting occurred at about 3 p.m. Friday. Du Pont pulled up in his car and opened fire as Schultz was standing outside his home in front of his car, Hunter said. Schultz's wife, Nancy, was inside the home.

As Saturday wore on, negotiators' telephone contact with du Pont became more frequent and the conversations longer, sometimes lasting up to six minutes, Hunter said. He declined to provide further details. Police also took a man and a woman up the drive but wouldn't say if they talked with du Pont. Relatives, an attorney and friends volunteered to speak with him, but officers declined to let them, Hunter said. Du Pont prof ile2A mounted an unsuccessful fight against tenure in court last year.

Mazzarelli said she believed attacking the tenure system was the best way to fulfill her campaign pledge to do something about taxes. Her effort has been lonely; only fellow GOP freshmen Craig Doran of Geneva and Fred Thlele of Suffolk County have signed on as co-sponsors. No one has agreed to carry the bill In the Republican-led state Senate. "This is an issue that most people agree upon behind closed doors," Mazzarelli said. She believes the lack of support for her bill is a testament to the teacher union's strength as a lobbying force, a power that some advised her not to buck.

Mazzarelli said she's already been called a "bully" by some teachers in her district. Her lack of support on the measure has more to do with the bill's See TENURE6 A 4 J. i V- lull! A Vnr. ration simulations. One Center, located in Rochester, plans to commemorate the day with a moment of silence.

Center administrator Michael Newcombe said that at the request of the Challenger families, their focus will be on April 24, the date of the official establishment of Challenger Centers, not the accident Itself. "The families really wanted to do something other than plaques and statues. It (the accident) was a tremendous shock, but out of that tragedy came something that I think is just fantastic. The legacy of the crew continues and it will continue forever. The philosophy of the mission continues." Lawmaker calls for end to N.Y.

teachers' tenure CHARLIE CORTEZStar-Gazette HER PETS WERE SAVED: "These dogs are my family," Barbara Smith said Saturday, as she collects her thoughts from the back yard of her Wellsburg home. A neighbor saved her dogs from drowning as the kennel filled with water during the Jan. 19 flood. Officials from other counties were not available for updates Saturday. Earlier damage estimates in those counties included $7.2 million in Bradford, $10 million in Potter, $1 million in Schuyler, $25 million in Tioga, Pa.

and up to $10 million in Tioga, N.Y. The Red Cross was first with aid and will continue to help. "We're not wrapped up by any stretch," said Carol Pavlik, executive director of the Corning chapter. Her chapter has assisted 55 families with food, clothing, shelter and other aid and 12 of those cases are still open, she said. That includes about $5,000 in direct assistance in the form of See AGENCY6 A Applying for aid6A Sadly, the flags were just about all that survived the horrendous explosion that split apart the spacecraft just 73 seconds into the mission.

Jarvis planned to return to Buffalo in April 1986 to present the flag to the school. His widow, Marcia, did it for him at a ceremony renaming an engineering building for her husband. A year before the Challenger mission, Jarvis gave the commencement speech for SUNY Buffalo's Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he had earned a bachelor of science in electrical engineering in 1967. Jarvis also received a posthumous Doctor of Science degree from N.Y. flags remind many of Challenger disaster The Associated Press ALBANY Debra Mazzarelli admits to some fear for her political life.

The freshman Republican assemblywoman has proposed a bill to tear down the tenure system that critics say virtually guarantees a teacher's job for lite. She wants to require that a teacher's job status be reviewed every five years. Her bill challenges what is arguably Albany's most potent lobbying force, New York State United Teachers, on the issue it considers most sacred. Lobbyists for school boards across the state had been trying for three years to get some state lawmaker any one of the 211 to submit a bill on the concept of "renewable tenure" before Mazzarelli agreed. The Long Island legislator's Patchogue district Is filled with voters angry about high property taxes, and the local school board the college in May 1986.

His mother, an Ilion resident, accepted it for him. The college also offers scholarships In Jarvis' name. Jarvis had been chosen from a field of 600 Hughes Aircraft employees to fly on the shuttle and release a communications satellite. Jarvis was an engineer, not an astronaut. Like crewmate Christa McAuliffe, an "ordinary citizen." After the accident, the families of the crew established Challenger centers for Space Science Education in their honor.

There are 26 such Centers across North America, which teach children math, science and problem-solving skills through space explo The Associated Press Gregory Jarvis took New York state with him on the last mission of the space shuttle Challenger 10 years ago in the form of the state flag. New York's contribution to the Challenger mission also included a college student's science experiment and a learning center founded by the crew's families after the accident. Among the items the payload specialist carried with him in his vacuum-packed tube was also the flag of his alma mater, SUNY Buffalo, as a token of appreciation for those who had unlocked his future, he said. 'if, rr) Horoscope 6D Lottery 1B Money 10C Movies 4B Obituaries 2B Opinion 8-9A People 7A 01096 Star-Oazatt Vol. 118, No.

26 News Local Sports Home Classified TV Week Abby 6D Classified 1E HomelD First winner in series Buzz Calkins, driving in his first Indy-car race, won the inaugural Indy 2007C STORY TIME: Tall Tales by Jim Glimm, Mansfield University professor of English and folklore, 3:30 p.m., Tanglewood Nature Center, Elmira. Free. 607732-6060. ON SCREEN: "I Am Cuba," 2 p.m., Corning Glass Center Theater. Members non-members $5.

607937-5371. CO rSQ ttqx 111 'O 2.