The Press Democrat from Santa Rosa, California • 12

B4 THI MESS DEMOCRAT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMIER 13, 1 1 Sacramento mass muraer A victim mutilated 1 If. Clinic funds sought Veterans have project permits By JAC SniRFIBMAN AMariatH PrrM SAN FRANCISCO Partly from a sense of guilt, a group of U.S. Vietnam veterans on Tuesday asked Americans for money to build a medical clinic outside Ho Chi Minn City, formerly Saigon. "We just feel like this Is an unfinished legacy of the Vietnam War," Army veteran Fredy Champagne, 41, told a crowded news conference as several other vets looked on. "No one has ever attempted to address this issue in regard to the Vietnam War." Champagne, who changed his name from Fred S.

Higdon, described the project as "war reparations we must put this Issue behind us we are the veterans who participated in the destruction of the country and we are the veterans who will be the laborers oj this construction project." Looking pale and tense, Champagne said he has suffered for over ttfo decades, and was looking for tlrls way to make him well again. 4 ietnam veterans Bud Rogers, on left, Fredy Champagne, center, and Lenny Anderson discuss plans for a medical clinic in Vietnam "From what I've seen, we haven't found anybody who matches this description," Simmons said, "but some of them were very decomposed." Only one of the bodies has been Identified and the causes of death are still unknown. James Beede, a toxicologlst with the coroner's office, said authorities were searching for evidence of poison as a cause of death, but declined to provide specifics. "There was some evidence uncovered at the scene for particular substances we are looking for," Beede said. "I can't say what substances we're looking for." Earlier In the day, police met with Social Security officials to obtain the records of 16 missing tenants of Puente's boardlnghouse.

Police want the payment records of people who were reported missing after living at the home, hoping to determine whether their Social Security checks were Improperly cashed. Authorities have accused Puente of killing elderly boarders and hiding their bodies to collect their Social Security checks. She said in a television Interview after her arrest last Wednesday that she didn't kill anyone but admitted, "the checks I cashed, yes." disorder. I've had lots of problems with this, and this Is a way that I personally will assuage my guilt." As he spoke, he gave the impression that he was still fighting the war Inside himself and that he had a blood debt to repay. He lives with his wife In Garberville, not far from the forest where he retreated after the war.

As a 19-year-old Georgia boy. Champagne was one of the first recruits sent to fight in 1965. He patroled for a year with an 6 north of Saigon and along the Cambodian border, he said. The former First Infantry Divi- After 44 years, letter finds home 1 1 1 1 "liiirn -V- i i- Li zA 1 i i A.SMJUAIIUf'HI btt sion soldier said he and 12 veteran buddies are so certain that Americans will contribute $60,000 to build the clinic at Vung Tao that they have their plane tickets and tools for a Jan. 17 flight to Southeast Asia.

The group has collected $3,000 so far, he said. "This clinic will help the Vietnamese with their health care problems and is small enough for 12 veterans to accomplish In a two-month time frame, not only to help the Vietnamese, but to heal ourselves to repair the damage that we personally caused to the Vietnamese people." ASSOCIATED PRESS the Johnsons left no forwarding address. Althoff then contacted the Veterans Administration and learned that Morris had died. Finally, the association paid $7 to the State of California for Johnson's death certificate, which listed Fresno. In late September, Althoff called Johnson's funeral home and Elian Miller had known Johnson.

On Sept. 27, Karan Johnson returned Althoff's call and the search ended. So far, the attempts to save the condors has cost about $20 million. About a dozen reporters were allowed to observe three of the birds on Tuesday in a tour led by officials of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, National Audubon Society, and Los Angeles Zoo.

The three young female condors, all about 5 months old and weighing 19 to 21 pounds, sat in the shade, napping in the net-enclosed half of their 35-by-l 6-foot roosting box, which sits atop sawed-off telephone poles 10 feet above the ground to protect them from hungry black bears and coyotes. Viewed from a blind about 100 yards above the cage, the condors look like balls of down, since their 0 1 I jiMi Ur-i By DOUG WILMS Anoclited Press SACRAMENTO One of the seven bodies unearthed In the yard of a Victorian boardlnghouse had been beheaded, and Its hands and feet were cut off, a coroner said Tuesday. "It was missing the feet and hands and head. We don't know if the mutilation occurred before or after death," said Sacramento County Coroner Charles Simmons. He said the body was that of a woman, 50 to 60 years old, and was the only body that had suffered "obvious physical trauma." Dorothea Montalvo Puente, 59, the landlady who ran the two-story house, has been charged with one count of murder In the death of Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, a mentally handicapped transient and former tenant who has been missing for months from Puente's home.

Prosecutors are considering whether to charge her with additional counts, said police spokesman Sgt. Bob Burns. District Attorney John Dougherty declined to discuss the case. Simmons, whose office has completed autopsies on all seven bodies, said none of the victims matched Montoya's description. Quakers sue on immigrant statutes Associated Press LOS ANGELES The American Friends Service Committee filed suit in federal court on Tuesday seeking a religious exemption to new immigration laws which require employers to fire undocumented workers.

Steven G. Cary, chairperson of the board of directors, said the group commonly known as Quakers was acting on behalf of "the dispossessed and the undocumented," those who have been driven from their countries by war and economic deprivation. "We find ourselves ordered by the government to cast out those we have tried for so long to help," said Cary. "The effort of a parent to feed his or her children is criminalized. The demand that we fire those we cannot document is repugnant to us." The lawsuit seeks to exempt the AFSC as an employer from the employer sanction requirement of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

It contains the threat of fines up to $10,000 for employers who fail to verify documents or fail to fire employees who don't produce documentation. Attorney Peter Schey, executive director of the National Center for Immigrants Rights, said the lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles because it has the largest population of immigrant refugees who would be affected by employer sanctions. He raised the hope that the U.S. attorney general, under the new George Bush administration, might choose to provide an exemption for groups such as AFSC and avoid protracted litigation. He said that at least 40 other religious groups have sought to join in the lawsuit and would probably be affected by its outcome.

Cary said that the AFSC, which employs 450 people nationwide, has refused to comply with the employer sanction provision until now. wing feathers aren't yet fully developed. Biologists sneak into the covered portion of the cage at night to deliver meals of calf meat, ground horse meat and chopped rats, said Mike Wallace, the Los Angeles Zoo's curator of birds. "Once or twice a week, we go to dairies and pick up stillborn calves," Wallace said, explaining the source of the birds' beef supply. The condors displayed Tuesday will be released in January, along with a fourth bird that had not yet arrived.

Scientists hope that once released, the birds will stay in the sanctuary and away from areas where wild California condors died from what officials believe was lead poisoning. All permissions for the project, including "clearance" from the U.S. State Department, have been received by his "Vietnam Veterans Restoration Project," he said. He displayed a letter from Nguyen Co Thach, Vietnam minister of foreign affairs, giving "official permission to bring a 12-man team of veterans to build a medical clinic" at Vung Tau. The letter also welcomed help toward restoring diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"I do have a personal sense of guilt," he declared. "I have suffered 22 years of post traumatic stress port of Oran in Algeria. Johnson's letter was handwritten in pencil. It had his serial number, 39337906, in the left hand corner, an indecipherable return address, and the stamped "U.S. Army Examiner." Postage was free.

It had been lost in a duffel bag with 235 other letters written by 92 servicemen aboard the Caleb Strong to II 7 addresses in 34 states. "It's private, something the family should only know." KARAN JOHNSON A crew member aboard the Caleb Strong was to mail the letters when he arrived in the United States. Instead, the crew member left the duffel bag full of mail in his aunt's attic, where it remained for 42 years along with some old socks. The letters were found in February 1986 in Raleigh, N.C., by a pest exterminator spraying the woman's attic. Johnson said her father never talked about the war, but she heard he was "some sort of war hero." She said her father received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart during combat.

"But deep down, my father was a romantic. He was always giving my mother gifts," Johnson said. "I honestly don't know what to expect to find In the letter." The detective work to find Johnson is a story in itself. The task was taken by James Althoff, president of the 781st Bomb Squadron Association, which had men on the the Caleb Strong. Johnson was not a member of the Trial is aimed at With 9V4-foot wingspans, they are North America's largest bird.

All the survivors are in captive breeding programs at the Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park. In five to 10 years, after enough of them have reproduced in captivity, some of the young birds will be re-introduced into the wild to make another attempt to avoid extinction. To learn the best way to release the California condors and assure their survival, researchers are using young Andean condors donated by various zoos as stand-ins for their more endangered relatives. Between 1,000 and 2,000 Andean Detective work locates senders' offspring MKlMchy News Service FRESNO A letter from Morris Arthur Johnson, a master sergeant in the U.S. Army, arrived Monday at his daughter's doorstep in Fresno.

It was addressed to his wife, Mrs. M.A. Johnson, 716 Arguello San Francisco. The letter had been lost for more than 44 years. Karan Johnson, both parents long dead, accepted the letter from Fred Myrie of the U.S.

Postal Service in front of news reporters and neighbors crowding in her living room and on her front porch. "This letter has sat in an attic a long time," Myrie said. "It is my duty to deliver it." The faded-white envelope was handed over along with two black-and-white photographs of a transport, the USS Caleb Strong, on which her father was headed overseas when the letter was written. "It's probably a love letter," said Johnson, noting that her father had "lousy handwriting." Johnson said the letter will be opened on Thanksgiving Day when she and her sister and two brothers will have a reunion In Fresno. "It's private, something the family should only know," she said of the letter.

But, "I'm very interested in it because I miss my parents a lot." Morris Johnson, a Fresno pharmacist, died in 1966. His wife, Roberta, died in 1984. They met on a blind date in San Francisco and were married in 1939. The letter was written between May 3 and May 21, 1944, when Johnson was aboard the ship which was en route from Newport News, to the Mediterranean IN BRIEF No new leads in llayward kidnapping HAYWARD A "small army" of police and support personnel are tracking down lips in the kidnapping of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, but Hayward police said Tuesday they have no solid leads in the case. On the fourth day of Mi-chaela's disappearance, Sgt.

Craig Calhoun said about 25 people were working full time on the investigation and FBI agents were also working on the case. Michaela vanished Saturday morning after being abducted from the parking lot of the Rainbow Market on Mission Boulevard where she had gone with a playmate to buy soda and candy. SF's day of remembrance SAN FRANCISCO Mayor Art Agnos proclaimed Sunday a "Day of Remembrance" in honor of former Mayor George Mos-cone and supervisor Harvey Milk, who were fatally shot 10 years ago. Agnos also said he would participate in a candlelight march scheduled Sunday night in commemoration of Moscone and Milk, the nation's first openly gay elected official. Zoo loses hippo SAN DIEGO Lotus, a 45-year-old East African river hippopotamus who was born at the San Diego Zoo, was humanely destroyed because of deteriorating health, a zoo spokeswoman said.

Lotus was the last river hippo at the San Diego Zoo, Irvine said. Lotus' father, Rube, the oldest hippo in captivity, died In January at age 51. Mother Ruby died in 1982. Gallo family clash in court FRESNO A trademark infringement suit between the owners of Gallo Winery, the world's largest, and their younger brother over alleged misuse of the family name on his brand of cheese went to trial in U.S. District Court.

The elder Gallos claim use of Joseph Gallo's last name on a brand of cheese he produces violates the winery's trademark. Ernest, 79, and Julio, 78, claim their younger sibling is getting a free ride on a reputation that took 50 years to develop. Press Democrat news services Karan Johnson holds photograph of her parents and the letter from her dad to her mother she just received Six Andean condors await test release in California squadron. He was in the infantry. "He was just another veteran fighting in the war," said Althoff, of Atherton, who was at Johnson's house Monday when the letter changed hands.

But, "One thing about us, we always look out for each other." The search began in May and took four months, Althoff said. The association had already returned all but eight letters from the long-lost duffel bag, he said. Members of the association first canvassed San Francisco, but saving cousins condors remain in the wilds of South America. "These are surrogates," said Joseph Dowhan, condor recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're going to test release techniques, release sites, and train people." Seven of the Andean birds will be freed in December and January into the Sespe Condor Sanctuary, 50 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Along with up to 10 others to be freed late next year, they will be rounded up when the $440,000 study is done In two or three years, then released permanently in their native Colombia. ByLFESFF.GF.L Associated Pre SESPE CONDOR SANCTUARY Perched in cages in brush-covered mountains, six Andean condors munch on beef and chopped rats as they await release into the wild for an experiment aimed at saving their California condor cousins from extinction. "It will be a credit to humankind if we can preserve the animals of the Earth, and the condor is but one animal facing dire straits," said Jeff Opdycke, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official who toured the Andean condor release site with reporters Tuesday. Of thousands of California condors that once soared in the early 1800s, only 28 of the vulture-like, carrion-eating birds remain alive..