Rocky Mount Telegram from Rocky Mount, North Carolina • 2

Carolina Page 2A Rocky Mount Telegram Monday July 28, 1997 Businesses seek extra protection froin lawsuits protecting former employers who give truthful job references. "What the Legislature is being forced to do is to act, where perhaps in another time this kind of action wouldn't be called for," he said. Excluding cases filed against motorists, there were 2,805 lawsuits alleging negligence by persons and companies filed in North Carolina courts in the year ending in June 1996. farther away from its rural roots, the average person doesn't understand the inherent risks of being around a thousand-pound animal that is guided by instinct," said Margie Rhodes, president of the North Carolina Horse Council. After a positive vote in the state Seriate last week, the state's equine interests are very close to getting the enhanced protection from lawsuits they wanted.

So General Assembly is sometimes too ready to protect businesses from legal responsibility. "There isn't a business in this state that wouldn't like two things: a loophole so they wouldn't have to pay taxes and immunity from lawsuits," said Sen. Leslie Winner, D-Mecklenburg, an attorney who voted against the equine activities protection bill. Other legislators say they are fulfilling their responsibility to judge what is worthy of added liability protection and what is best left to be straightened out by the discipline of potential lawsuits. "What you're trying to do is weigh these competing interests.

-You've got a pretty litigious society and it is quelling socially desirable conduct," said Rep. Chuck Neely, R-Wake, an attorney who promoted the bill Rainy-day fun Cops review old 2-year- AP photo Remnants of Hurricane Danny may have pretty good time Thursday. He and his father caused adults big headaches in Durham, but were stopped by the side of Leesville Road Benjamin Varga seemed to be having a after high water closed down the road. Tourism officials tout RALEIGH (AP) A horse is a horse. Somelimes they throw riders, causing injury or even death.

So the folks who offer riding instruction, hold horse shows and arrange horseback rides came to the General Assembly asking for legal protection from lawsuits if a customer or spectator is hurt or. killed by a spooked horse. "As our population gets State briefs The Associated Press Charter school board to meet Tuesday The Charter Public School Board will hold its monthly meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Braswell Library. Theboard wm the school's budget, as well as" food service and transportation, A staff and building update will also be presented.

Hero dog dies after saving owners in fire CHINA GROVE A family dog that alerted his owners to a fire died in the blaze after the humans escaped. Rowan County Deputy Sheriff Randy St. Clair and his wife, Denise, were sleeping in their log home early Sunday when the poodle-like dog; jumped on their bed and began barking. The couple shooed the dog away, but it continued trying to alert them, said Michael Zimmerman, chief of the Boston Heights Volunteer Fire Department. St.

Clair realized something was wrong when a window shattered because of the heat and he and his wife escaped. The dog didn't follow them through the front door and St. Clair broke a window and tried to coax the dog outside but couldn't. Zimmerman said. ESCAPEE From page 1A ter, another minimum security site, said Superintendent Mike Thumm.

"It's basically a peiiod of time that elapses when someone has been maintaining decent behavior and trustworthiness," Thumm added. Arrington had one disciplinary infraction at Orange Correctional Center for marijuana possession, the superintendent said. "That was the only difficulty we had with him," Thumm said. Arrington's case has been reviewed by the parole board four times, and. he's been denied release; each time.

The most recent review occurred about a month ago, Thumm said. "This is the last step before people get out," Thumm added. "There's a lot of off-site activities working at local mills, fast food, construction jobs and yard work. "That would have been the next step lor Carlton. We.

would have considered that for him in the next several The prison described Arlington as a black male, 183 pounds, ith black hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing green- pants and a white shirt. Stall writer. I aw. Rutigliano and The Associated Press contributed to this storv.

are roller skating rink operators and company human resources officers who describe the performance of former workers to prospective employers. In return, each of those interests will have responsibilities they must meet to keep their protection clearly spelled out. But the growing exceptions to laws that determine who is liable for damage and injuries worry; some lawmakers, who think the Ridge where the mountains meet the piedmont, creating some of the highest waterfalls in the eastern U.S. on four rushing rivers. The area gets enough annual rainfall more than 80 inches on average to support subtropical plants found nowhere else in the mountains and, in the case of the rare Oconee bells, nowhere else in the world.

The area now owned by Duke Power would be first state: park west of Mount Mitchell and would join a park South Carolina 45ryear-old psychiatrist and impel the research at the Nicotine Research Center. "The basic question is why people want the things they want. Why do people really pursue them," Rose said. "I got hooked on nicotine research." Rose works at an office just a short drive from the headquarters of cigarette maker Liggett Group and for a university founded on tobacco money. His patients are tested as they use patches and inhalers to help stop the urge to smoke.

Some experiments use resolution im quality inspectors visit the site. David Thompson, Durham county manager, said Sunday night a valve at the plant's influent pump station malfunctioned and caused sewage to overflow rather than pump the quarter mile to the plant, which is at 55 and T.W. Alexander Drive. The sewage plant serves primarily Research Triangle Park and about 5,000 residents near the park. Thompson said an alarm r' BREVARD (AP) A new park on 50,000 acres in Transylvania County would be a boon to tourism and that, in turn, would help every taxpayer, tourism officials say.

"It gives us another beautiful area that we can point to with pride," said Maria Tambellini, director of the Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Anytime we can add to our product inventory, that's a bonus for us." The land at issue is along what scientists know as the Blue CHAPEL HILL AP) Lindy Pendergrass doesn't spend much time in the Coker Arboretum at the University of North Carolina these days, but it's not hard for him to remember the days he spent 32 years ago crawling, digging and squinting. As a young Chapel Hill police officer, Pendergrass investigated the July 30, 1965 murder of a university student. "I can close my eyes and visualize everything down said Pendergrass, the Orange County sheriff. "I often think about that case, every time I go down Raleigh Street." On Wednesday, 32 years will have passed since an unidentified man stabbed Suellen Evans to death in one of the most peaceful spots on the university campus.

Chapel Hill police launched their most intensive review of the. case in recent memory this year. Evans, who was 21 and a rising junior who had just enrolled at UNC-CH that summer, took the garden path through the arboretum as the shortest way back to her room in Cobb Dormitory. She had planned for a weekend trip home to Mooresville, and was in a hurry to pack and get her hair done. Suddenly, a man grabbed her from behind, dragging her into bushes under a crape myrtle.

Her books scattered, and she screamed as he ripped her blue-and-white pinstriped shirt, one she had made herself. They struggled, trampling a bed of periwinkles. He pulled a knife, cut her neck, then plunged the blade into her heart. Hearing the screams, a female student ran into the arboretum from the far side, along Raleigh Street She glimpsed a dark-skinned arm around Evans' legs, then saw the attacker sprint Big spill Nicotine research thrives I often think about that case, every time I go down Raleigh Street." Lindy Pendergrass away. The student ran back to the; sidewalk' to summon help, and; another female student and a nun? who happened to be passing hurried to Evans.

fy you hurt?" the second; student asked, helping Evans to her feet. "No," she said, unaware she; was dying. "I think I'm going to; faint. He tried to rape me." She collapsed. The nun tried to revive her, but Evans died.

Converging on the arboretum from three directions minutes; after the attack, police were; certain they had boxed in the killer. Yet he escaped, and bloodhounds could not pick up his scent. Through the feverish first year, of the search, police and SB1 agents followed 251 leads and questioned 116 possible suspects, then-Police Chief William Blake said. officers logged 790 hours of unpaid duty assisting investigators. The next five years Chapel Hill investigators pursued leads from as far away as Chicago and Odessa, Texas.

Since January, a special team has been studying the file, looking for anything an earlier generation of investigators might have overlooked. In recent days, members interviewed the last living prime suspect, who passed a polygraph exam, Chief Ralph Pendergraph said. Police say now they know more than they ever have about the crime. Yet they aren't even sure the killer is still alive. In light of the recent polygraph results, suspicion now falls on a second man long considered a prime suspect.

Pendergraph said. AP photo DURHAM (AP) At a school and in a city built on the country's appetite for cigarettes, a researcher is unlocking the secrets needed to wean smokers off tobacco. Dr. Jed Rose of Duke University runs one of the country's leading laboratories designed to learn exactly how nicotine grips most of the nation's 46 million smokers. Government figures indicate that 419,000 people die annually from smoking-related illnesses.

The hows and whys of nicotine addiction intrigue the lanky park idea to form more than 40 square miles of park land. several years ago, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce found that without tourism, every household in Buncombe County would pay S3 18 more per year in taxes. Attractions like, the gorges bring tourists who not only add to public coffers through state and local sales taxes, but also inject money into the economy. Tourism promoters claim each dollar visitors spend is re-spent at least seven times in the community before it goes elsewhere. in Bull City aging of brain receptors to determine where nicotine spreads with each puff.

Rose is also working on a promising patch-and-pill combination. "He's absolutely at the forefront of using medication to help people quit smoking," said Dr. Jaylan Turkkan, chief of the behavioral sciences -research branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Rockville, Md. Even witii all the medicines and tests, most patients don't succeed. sewage spill sounded at 9 a.m.

Sunday signaling that one pump had failed. A team of engineers responded to the alarm to fix the pump, but by 11 a.m. the plant had shut down completely, he said. "The biggest problem is environmental," Thompson said. "We notified the state emergency management team and "the state water quality division, and they will determine what happens from here." Dave Roe Circulation director KeithAbbott Production director Marti Barnes Advertising director Plant malfunction results in DURHAM (AP) Up to I nullum gallons of raw sewage spilled into tributaries of a lake when four pumps at the Triangle Wastewater Treatment Plant in southern Durham County Hooded.

The waste went into Burden's Creek, which flows into Northeast Creek and then into Jordan Lake, a major supplier of "drink mg water in the Triangle. The spill's effect on drinking water and human health will not be known until state water Rocky Mount Telegram Den Dickerson Publisher JeffHerrin Managing editor Gwen Williamson Accountant Miss your paper? We hope not. But if you haven't received your Rocky Mount Telegram by 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, or by 7 a.m. Saturday or.

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