Hattiesburg American from Hattiesburg, Mississippi • 3

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2012 LOCAL NEWS EDITOR ERIN KOSNAC: (601) 584-3070, ejkosnachattiesburgamerican.com 3A DHt Man pleads gUDufcjf Nev. murder suspect convicted in Miss, for death of his mother By Ken Ritter Associated Press LAS VEGAS A white-haired ex-convict from Mississippi described by police as a serial killer pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Las Vegas to murder and sex assault charges in the cold case slayings of three women 16 years apart. Nathaniel Burkett remained in a wheelchair during his brief appearance before a judge who took his plea and set Burkett's next court appearance for Jan. 7. A state court judge is expected at that time to set a trial date.

Burkett, who has used several dates of birth that would put him in his 60s, is accused of killing 22-year-old Barbara Ann Cox in April 1978 and 27-year-old Tina Gayle Mitchell and 32-year-old Althea Maria Williams in separate slayings in 1994. Po- AFTER THE STORM lice say each woman was sexually assaulted, strangled and left dead in a neighborhood near where Burkett lived at the time. Burkett's public defender, David Schieck, said outside court Wednesday that he plans to challenge the statute of limitations on a felony sexual assault charge lodged against Burkett in the Mitchell case. Mitchell's mother, Diane Stamps, 63, said she wants closure to her daughter's slaying after almost 18 years. "I just want it to be really, really over," she said.

A panel of Clark County dis- CLICK IT To see more photos, scan the QR code above with your smartphone or go to sir wfmm Vw T-Sw zr trict attorney prosecutors is expected to decide in whether Burkett will face the death penalty in the three cases. Burkett has two previous manslaughter convictions, including one in Mississippi that put him in prison from 1983 to 1992 in the death of his mother. He served from 2004 to 2009 in Nevada prisons on a manslaughter conviction in the September 2002 strangulation of a 41-year-old woman in Las Vegas. Burkett was living with his sister in Mississippi before his extradition in August. Teacher's CPR goal falls a bit short 2,600 in Petal have learned skill so far By Ellen Ciurczak American Staff Writer petal A Petal High School teacher has fallen short of her goal to teach CPR to 60 percent of the city's residents, but she has managed to teach the life-saving skill to about 3,000 people.

Science and health teacher Mary Hill and 28 high school students have been conducting CPR classes for Petal residents since May. "To date, we have taught 31 classes to 2,623 Petal residents," Hill said. "We're doing really good." Hill says there are three classes left to go one each in January, February and March. She expects there will be about 240 people total at those classes, leaving her short of her mark of reaching 60 percent of Petal's 11,200 residents. But Hill is happy with the number of people she and her student volunteers have taught.

"We sure will have trained a lot of people in CPR," she said. Hill got a $25,000 grant through the Petal School District Foundation for the CPR education effort. She spent $20,000 on 100 adult mannequins and 100 baby mannequins to use in the CPR classes. "Even when I teach nurses and people that have taken CPR their whole life, they say it's their best CPR class because they have their own mannequin," Hill said. Hill needs those 100 adult and baby mannequins because the classes she offers have 100 people in them.

That proved somewhat unnerving to Petal High senior Re-See CPR, Page4A PETAL CPR CLASSES Jan. 10: Carterville Baptist Church, 1115 Carterville Road Feb. 7: Center for Families and Children, 201 W. Central Ave. March 7: Petal Civic Center, 712 S.

Main St. Details: To register, call 584-4706 Wednesday in the Maxie community near Brooklyn. Tornadoes tore through on Tuesday, leaving three people with minor injuries and several homes destroyed, bryant hawkinshattiesburg American AROUND THE PINE BELT JACKSON MHP reports 5 fatalities in Miss. The Mississippi Highway Patrol has reported five fatalities during the Christmas holiday period. Highway Patrol spokesman Master Sgt.

Johnny Poulos says the holiday period began at 6 p.m. Friday and ended at midnight Christmas night. Poulos says the fatalities were reported in the Jackson, Starkville, Hattiesburg, Meridian and New Albany districts. In the Hattiesburg district, Highway Patrol spokesman Cpl. Todd Miller said a single-vehicle, single-occupant accident killed Sharon Beasely, 58, of Seminary.

He said Beasely was driving a 2002 Chevrolet "frail Blazer on Mississippi 589 near Union Church Road in Covington County Sunday morning when she lost control of the vehicle. Miller said the woman was not wearing a seat belt, and she was ejected from the vehicle during the crash. Poulos says during the period, state troopers investigated 211 accidents across Mississippi, issued 5,601 traffic citations and arrested 111 drunkimpaired drivers. PINE BELT Area holiday closings posted The following is a roundup of holiday closings and schedule changes: CITIES AND COUNTIES Hattiesburg: Closed Monday and Tuesday; Tuesday's garbage pickup will be done on Wednesday Petal: Closed Monday and Tuesday; Tuesday's garbage pickup will be done on Monday Sumrall: Closed Mon- day and Tuesday; no change in garbage pickup Lumberton: Closed Monday and Tuesday; garbage pickup will be on Wednesday and Thursday this week and next Purvis: Closed Tuesday; Tuesday's garbage pickup will be done on Wednesday Forrest County: Closed Monday and liesday; Tuesday's garbage pickup will be done on Monday Lamar County: Closed Monday and Hiesday; Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday garbage pickup will be done one day later than the usual schedule this week and next SCHOOLS Hattiesburg Public School District: Students are out through Jan. 7 Forrest County School District: Students are out through Jan.

7 Forrest County Agricultural High School: Students are out through Jan. 7 Lamar County School District: Students are out through Jan. 7 Petal School District: Students are out through Jan. 7 Laurel School District: Students are out through Jan. 7 Jones County School District: Students are out through Jan.

4 University of Southern Mississippi: Offices are closed through Tuesday Pearl River Community College: Campus offices are closed through Jan. 2 Jones County Junior College: Campus offices are closed through Jan. 7 William Carey University: Campus offices are closed through Jan. 6 WASTE PRO Pickup will run Monday as scheduled. There will be no pickup Tuesday.

Regular Tuesday-Friday service will be a day later than usual this week and next. NEWSPAPER The Hattiesburg American business office will be closed Tuesday. Customer service hours for New Year's Day are 7 a.tn.-l p.m. The number is (800) 844-2637. Newspapers will be delivered as usual.

From staff, wire reports A truck in the Maxie community in southern Forrest County was thrown several hundred feet as a tornado touched down in the community on Christmas Day, leaving three people with minor injuries and several homes destroyed. See related story, 1A. John Desilvey watches Forresx Counxy workers clean up the damage near his home in the Maxie community. Tornadoes spawned by a cold front moving through the southeastern United States moved through South Mississippi and Alabama on Christmas Day, destroying homes in Forrest Pearl River, Perry and Stone counties and causing structural damage in Jones County. Facebook makes more feature, privacy changes friends, and didn't get back to them until weeks after they first tried to contact me.

So I guess this change is good on one hand and can be a headache on the other because those unwanted messages will begin piling up in your inbox. There is an alternative that might work for some of you. You can adopt the "strict filtering" setting, but you will miss some of the messages you might like to receive. The next change is a lot more obvious. Facebook is now calling you by name.

If you haven't noticed, Facebook in the box where you write your Facebook implemented a few changes to its user features and messaging last week, so I will attempt to explain some of them today. One of the changes will let you see more of the private messages you receive, even if they aren't from friends. To see the other messages before, you would have to go through a series of steps and actively look for them. Sometimes that is a good thing. For instance, I've gotten messages from people I don't know who want to be friends or they are looking for other things.

Those messages often status updates says things like "What's going on, Lici?" or "How has your day been, Lici?" Some people have told me they really don't like that. I don't mind. I mean, Facebook already knows more about us than we'd like to think, so why not call us by name? One more feature is the drag and drop photo upload. If someone emails you a photo or you have an old photo on a disc that you'd like to share, you can go to that file and drag it into the status update box. I think that feature is pretty See PRIVACY, Page 4A 00 LICI BEVERIDGE Online sat in the "other messages" filter until I looked through it and cleaned it out once a month.

But I've also gotten messages from long lost cousins or vQO.