The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 16

The War Goes On for a Rel uctant nn jr By PATT MORRISON Tlm Staff Writtr Eleven years after he and the Marine Corps parted company, Michael DuCross is hoping that he will not be the last victim of the Vietnam War. The 30-year-old Canadian-born man, an Iroquois Mohawk Indian, is back where he believes his troubles started Camp Pendleton. But this time, he is in a military jail, under close confinement, waiting for next Tuesday, when he faces a general court-martial, and even a possible death penalty, for his alleged desertion from the corps more than a decade ago. Until one night in late March, 1980, the Vietnam era had seemed to Michael DuCross, as it seemed to a lot of people in the United States, a painful relic of the distant past, growing mercifully more distant every day. But he had run out of cigarettes one evening, so DuCross hopped into his 1976 Pinto to drive to a store near his Huntington Beach home, and was promptly stopped by police for an illegal left turn.

Suddenly, on that dark street, it was 1969 again. A routine police check showed that for 11 years, one Michael J.J. DuCross had been listed in a national crime computer as a military deserter, a felon, and answer -able to a military court in a matter he had thought had been settled a long time ago. It has been about 80 days since DuCross walked out of his apartment door, days spent in custody in Camp Pendleton, while military and civilian attorneys, and most of all his wife, Sharron, try to figure out the answers of a case rooted in an era that had no answers. Michael DuCross had seen the marine Corps recruiting posters, his wife explained "you know, the 'be a man' stuff." And that is what the 18-year-old Canadian Indian youth wanted to be a man, to prove to his roustabout Irish Catholic father that a clenched fist and a flaring temper weren't necessary to manhood.

A couple of his brothers, among the family's 18 children, had learned it the hard way they were in jail, and Michael DuCross didn't want to follow them. So in early 1969, he joined the Marines, his wife said. He drove eight hours down to Albany, N.Y., from the outskirts of the Canadian Caughna- alien discharge," she explained, on the grounds of his Canadian citizenship and Indian birth. But the paperwork moved more slowly than the tanks DuCross drove, and around Christmastime in 1969 about two weeks after a letter recommending "that he be given a general discharge" apparently left Pendleton for the Pentagon DuCross left, himself, for Montreal, on a bus ticket purchased by a sympathetic aunt in West Covina. "He was so sure about his discharge," said his wife, "but he couldn't figure what they were doing with his papers.

He decided to split and wait for his discharge papers." That's not the way the military works, and the AWOL Marine was soon listed as a deserter. It didn't af- waga Indian reservation, where the family lived, and signed up for a three-year hitch, under treaty terms that allow North American Indians such privileges in both the United States and Canada. "He didn't like it," she says flatly. "You had to be too tough, too strong, too rough, and that isn't Michael's way. He's very quiet and passive he cares very deeply about everything and everybody." Within a few months of signing on, DuCross training at Camp Pendleton as an amphibious tank driver for the marshy terrain of Southeast Asia wanted out.

He had seen casualties returning from Vietnam and, he told his wife, they were changed men, "wacko," and he didn't want to wind up that way. "He applied for an administrative Alcala Given Death in Samsoe Slaying 6I a MACARTHUR BLVD. j) SANTAANA 2 iSlSM blvd fig fe vvl U.S.P$slOfflct 1 1 6 i JvA I profile 2 Cnttr 7r s. COSTA MESA paularino JOHNWAYNE 5 7VX ARPORT I 1 I 1 By DOUG BROWN Tlmn Staff Writtr SANTA ANA Rodney James Alcala was sentenced to death Friday by a Superior Court judge a year to the day after the kidnaping and murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach Judge Philip E. Schwab sentenced the 36-year-old Alcala to the gas chamber for the June 20, 1979, incident in which the Samsoe girl was kidnaped from Huntington Beach and taken to the Sierra Madre foothills where she was stabbed to death.

In imposing the sentence, Judge Schwab said, "It is fair to say that the evidence discloses that the defendant in a premeditated manner stalked his prey for a number of days." "The defendant," continued Judge Schwab, "not only has a prior felony conviction for (child molestation), but there are also distinct similarities to this case. This is a particularly vicious and cruel crime." In rejecting a defense plea that Alcala should not be put to death because he is mentally disturbed, Judge Schwab said, "He is a man of depraved character, but he is able to appreciate the difference between right and Schwab also rejected defense pleas for a new trial or imposition of life without possibility of parole rather than death. In arguing against what he called "the lust for blood that pervades this courtroom," defense attorney John Barnett acknowledged that Alcala was a "sexual misfit." But Barnett contended, "This crime is sick. Every crime and every indication of misdeed in his past has been the product of unthinking passion." Barnett told Judge Schwab, "I am not asking you to excuse Mr. Alcala Costa Mesa Projects Seen as Boon for City's Future Developments Mean Jobs, Housing, More Revenue; Officials Busy Working Out Future Traffic Flow By JERRY HICKS Timtt Stiff Wrlttr 3tngtUg LOCAL NEWS CC PART II SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1980 Pyramid Game Flaw: Police Hired as Guards By J.

MICHAEL KENNEDY TimtJ Staff Writtr IRVINE This computer pyramid game had one fatal flaw: the people running it hired policemen to protect the money. Irvine police Friday arrested six people, confiscated $25,000 in cash and found voided checks that totaled $1,085,000 in one of the more odd-ball pyramid crackdowns yet. Investigator Phil Povey said the whole thing started when an informant told him organizers of a computer pyramid game were looking for security guards because of the amount of cash involved. So Povey and another investigator, Paul Jessup, had themselves hired through the informant and showed up where the meeting was being held. (Povey would not release the name of the business where the game was broken up because he thought it Please Turn to Page 8, Col.

1 Connty MICHAEL DUCROSS A Vietnam War scapegoat? feet him then working in Canada in a grocery store, then with his father in a tree-trimming firm. He wrote about his status once, in Please Turn to Page 12, Col. 1 Rodney Alcala from guilt, but I am arguing against death." In response, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Farnell said, "The only appropriate sentence in a case like this is death.

The only question is whether death is sufficient for this defendant." During the two-month-long trial, evidence showed that Alcala was seen in the Huntington Beach area during the days preceding Robin's disappearance. Friends of the girl testified that Alcala attempted to take her picture while she was at the beach on June 20, 1979. Alcala lured Robin into his car by offering to take her to an afternoon dance lesson, according to testimony by Orange County Jail inmates who shared a cell with Alcala after his arrest. Alcala placed the yellow bicycle Robin was riding at the time in his car, according to what he told fellow inmate Michael Herrera. Please Turn to Page 12, Col.

1 NASA photos Ijj Times mtp by Gut Keller WRONG -WAY CAR CRASH KILLS TWO AND INJURES FIVE A 50-year-old Tustin woman died Friday afternoon, the second victim of a five-car, wrong-way traffic accident on the Newport Freeway. Jean Hetrick was injured Thursday night when a station wagon containing her and her husband, James, 47, collided head-on with a car driven by Judy L. Peters, 31, of Garden Grove. The Highway Patrol said Peters was northbound in the southbound freeway lanes at a high rate of speed, with no lights on, when the accident occurred at 8:25 p.m., just north of the San Diego Freeway. Peters was pronounced dead at the scene.

James Hetrick remained in critical condition Friday in Santa Ana-Tustin Community Hospital. Also injured in the crash were Daniel Ott, 26, and Paul Steakley, both of Please Turn to Page 10, Col. 3 Newsman Given 15 Years to Life Barley Sentenced in Wife's Stabbing Death SANTA ANA A Superior Court judge Friday handed a 15-years-to-life sentence to newsman Tom Barley for the stabbing death of his estranged wife at a shopping center. In imposing the sentence, Judge Mason L. Fenton said that Barley may be paroled from state prison in 10 years.

Judge Fenton said it had been difficult for him to decide whether to grant a defense request for a new trial or to let the jury verdict of second-degree murder stand and impose sentence. He noted that Barley, a former courthouse reporter for the Orange Coast Daily Pilot, was known by many judges and attorneys, several of whom had approached Fenton to inform him that Barley was a fine man. Judge Fenton said he had not known Barley before the trial. He said he had delayed sentencing so that he could regain his objectivity in the case. The jury that heard the month-long trial had rejected Barley's claim that he was not guilty because he was suffering from diminished mental capacity.

Judge Fenton indicated some disagreement with the jury's finding that Barley had been sane when he committed the crime. "There is no question in my mind but you are a mentally ill man," he told Barley. Please Turn to Page 12, Col. 1 the Auto Club's new three-building processing center. Other projects include: A Canadian Indemnity Insurance Co.

headquarters building on Harbor south of Sunflower; a new U.S. Post Office processing center, north of Sunflower between Harbor and Fairview (in Santa Ana); expansion of the Los Angeles Times Orange County plant on Sunflower near Harbor, and although it seems to be still far off a major music center on Sunflower just east of South Coast Plaza. "Orange County is running out of prime land," said Ray Watson, head of Newport Development Co. "We think we've got an excellent location." McFarland, who was mayor when much of the planning occurred, points out that all the developers have included plans to ease the traffic burden their projects create. That means car-pool incentives and staggered work shifts.

But the major projects will also include street improvements adjacent to their property at developers' expense. The Segerstroms, for example, will build an off-ramp lane from the San Diego Freeway, and will widen Bristol Street along its border. The Harbor Gateway developers will make street improvements on Harbor and Sunflower and will pay for traffic lights. The Royale Development Co. will extend Anton Boulevard and connect it with Sunflower in the residential part of the center.

The street improvements are the main advantage to having all these projects come along at once, McFarland said. "If we had only one project to deal with, we would never have gotten the developer to agree to build streets for us," he said. Most of the projects are close to the developers' original proposals. But details were ironed out in dozens of meetings between city planners and builders. "We've had nothing but the best cooperation from the city," said Werner Escher, spokesman for the Segerstrom Family.

McFarland is convinced the Segerstroms donated five acres for the proposed music center in Costa Mesa partly because they were pleased with their relationship with the city. "I don't mean to knock any neighboring cities, but if you look at some of Please Turn to Page 9, Col. 1 COSTA MESA Some of Orange County's biggest planned developments are bunched together in a three-mile stretch just north of the San Diego Freeway and west of the Newport Freeway. City officials in Costa Mesa have been gleefully shepherding these projects. They will mean more jobs, more housing, and an increased tax base for the city.

They will also mean more traffic in an area where the San Diego Freeway is already at its busiest within the county. But the city and the developers are working on that, too. The important thing, says Costa Mesa City Councilman Ed McFarland, is that "all the projects are quality." They include: The Sakioka Farms development. The Royale Development Co. of Torrance is leasing 165 acres from Sakioka Farms for a $300-million commercial and residential complex northwest of the junction of the San Diego and Newport The Harbor Gateway Business Center.

The Newport Development Co. will develop 74 acres of C.J. Segerstrom and Sons land for commercial and light industrial use, west of Harbor Boulevard between Sunflower Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard. Two Town Center. The new phase of the Segerstroms' Town Center is under way and will be partly finished next year.

It is between Bristol Street and the Sakioka project. The Automobile Club of Southern California. The site under development west of Fairview Avenue and south of Sunflower will be WOOD Wrlttr man of the legislative Black Caucus, blamed the "plantation owner" mentality of state Resources Secretary Huey Johnson for Huffman's failure to get the job. He and other blacks said it is one thing for Brown Administration officials to talk of the vast number of minorities they hire and have in training programs but, "it's very different to treat people as peers." Assemblyman Brown said Jerry chief of staff, Gray Davis, "asked me what I thought about the OEO (post) and I told him that would be the same as making me the branch administrator of the NAACP. I think I'm beyond that now." Johnson's Resources Agency oversees the operations of the Parks and Recreation Department.

"I don't think Huey Johnson likes her (Huffman) and he doesn't have the guts to say he doesn't like her," Brown said. Please Turn to Page 8, Col. 1 ASSEMBLYMAN BITTER Black Official Bypassed for State Parks Position By TRACY Timts Staff SACRAMENTO Gov. Jerry Brown Friday passed over Alice Huffman, the black chief deputy director of the state Parks and Recreation Department, and named a white Monterey County official to direct the department. Huffman, 44, had the backing of the Legislature's black leaders in her bid for the job, but Brown selected Peter Dangerwond 41, Monterey County parks director for several years.

Huffman was made director of the state Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), which channels funds to poverty programs. She replaces Richard Rios, who was named head of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity. Huffman recently oversaw a controversial audit of the Bazaar del Mundo concession, which operates on state-owned property in San Diego's Old Town. Assembly Democratic Leader Willie Brown of San Francisco, chair MARS PHOTO STUDY SHOWS WEATHER FRONT, CLOUDS It was a bright and clear day on Mars last Feb.

22 and the Viking Orbiter 1 spacecraft snapped the panoramic view of the Red Planet at right. When scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena looked at it closely, they, found two striking features: a weather front and a cluster of clouds. The weather front appears to be masses of air being pushed by winds out of the west and the south up and over underlying layers of the wispy Martian atmosphere. Similar patterns can be seen in harbors here on earth, a JPL-Caltech scientist said. Also, a patch of high clouds, more than 91,000 feet above the surface, were caught by the Viking Orbiter's cameras, along with the clouds' surface shadows.

The Viking Orbiter 1 has been operating for four years now it arrived at Mars June 19, 1976 and is fast running out of stabilizing gas supply. if.