The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 16

1 THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, J.n. 4, 1982 MetiQStateDiggst 14 Dead In Georgia Weekend Accidents N.C. Probes Insurance Firm Based In Atlanta (X From SMf And Prtu DkMtchn The marketing practices of an Atlanta-baaed life insurance company are being examined by the North Carolina attorney general's office to determine if they violate the state's law against pyramid operations. The probe of the A.L Williams Insurance Co. involves some of the same issues commented upon in an insurance newsletter, and considered misleading by the state Insurance Department, The News and Observer of Raleigh reported Sunday.

The newspaper reported that the inquiry will look into whether agents for A.L Williams can advance within the firm by selling policies to themselves or others within the company. Associate Attorney General Phil A. Telfer said another question is how many policies are sold to people who are not agents or officials in the company. In a classic pyramid scheme, all sales are made to people who have been recruited to sell to others. North Carolina law bans businesses in which people pay to join a scheme in which they can be compensated for inducing others to participate in the same scheme.

About 75 percent of A.L Williams' business is done with customers who cancel their policies with other firms and sign with Williams. Those new customers also are encouraged to become agents and sell more A.L. Williams policies to others because they carry high commissions. 3" VI' By Tin AuocleM Prtw Fourteen people were killed in New Year's holiday-weekend accidents in Georgia, including a Valdosta woman who was thrown from her car into a lane of traffic after a rear-end collision, authorities said. Eddie Carter Bratton, 27, of Valdosta, died in the predawn hours Sunday when she was thrown from her car into the southbound lane of traffic on Interstate 75 in Lowndes County, about three miles north of her hometown, the state patrol said.

Troopers said Ms. Bratton was traveling in the northbound lane when a car struck the rear of her vehicle and caused it to overturn on the median, ejecting her into the road. Douglas Vernon Smith, 23, of Athens was killed in the predawn hours Sunday when his vehicle left a road, struck a culvert and landed upside down about seven miles north of Crawford in Crawford County, the state patrol said. John Henry Emore, 36, of Conyera died Saturday afternoon when his car crossed the center line on Georgia 12 in DeKalb County and struck another vehicle head-on about four miles south of Lithonia, troopers reported. The patrol said Postell Milner, 62, of Rockmart was fatally injured Saturday afternoon when the car in which he was riding ran off the road and struck a culvert on Georgia US in Polk County.

Albert Jessie Washington, 66, of Augusta died Friday morning after his car left a Richmond County road and struck a parked sheriffs patrol car, sheriffs deputies said. Washington's car also hit another vehicle and three pedestrians before coming to rest in a ditch. Deputies said the pedestrians were not seriously injured. Troopers said Walter Boyer, a 74-year-old Milledgevllle man, died Saturday when the car he was driving and another car collided on a Baldwin County road. Five others were injured in the accident Dale Alton Williams, 30, of Byron and Kenneth Ray Cupp, 23, of Macon died late Thursday night or early Friday morning! when the car in which they were riding overturned on a Houfc' ton County road, the Houston County sheriffs office said.

Timothy Hayes Berry, 21, of Atlanta, was killed when his car struck a tree alongside a DeKalb County road Friday morning, the patrol said. Troopers reported that Shirley Brooks, 40, of Griffin, died early Friday when the car she was driving' and another vehicle collided at an intersection in Spalding, County. Johnny Johnson, 51, of Greensboro, was killed early Friday when the car in which he was a passenger left the road! and overturned near Greensboro, the patrol said. The patrol said James Lee McClung, 27, of Bronwood, died Thursday night when he was struck by a car while walking along a Sumter County road. i Barbara J.

Newborn, 26, of EUenwood, died late Thursday when the car in which she was riding veered off a road north of McDonough, troopers said. Kelly Suzanne Royal, 18, of Stone Mountain, was killed Thursday night when the car in which she was riding left a DeKalb County road and overturned, the patrol said. mHieimht in tinmftft m-m-M tamwunf. Celebrates 82nd Birthday Martin Lather King Sr. blows oil the candles ra his cake daring a celebratioi of Us 82nd birthday Sunday moriing.

The party for the father of late civil rights leader Martin Lather King Jr. was held at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he oice served ai pastor. (Staff Photo Kenneth Walker) NAACP Won't Attend KKK Meeting GRIFFIN The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People decided Sunday night not to participate in a public meeting sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan. Spalding County black leaders said a confrontation between members of the NAACP and the Klan might provoke violence at the Kan's meeting next Saturday at Griffin High School. After the Klan won school board approval to conduct a meeting to discuss "educational issues in the community" at the school, NAACP President Gary Reid urged blacks to attend the meeting to ensure that education issues were discussed.

But about 125 NAACP members Sunday night voted to stay away from the KKK meeting. JNo Apparent Threat In Gasoline Spill ROME A weekend gasoline spill apparently no longer poses the threat of contaminating the city's water supply or catching fire, the Rome Water Department said Sunday. Officials, however, said they would remain alert for any sign of the fuel in the Oostanaula River, the source of drinking water found in her apartment at 2409 Picadilly Place, Apt 80, dead from a gunshot wound. Pilot Dies In Private-Plane Crash An Atlanta-based Eastern Airlines' pilot died in a for the northwest Georgia city. An estimated 3,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline spilled from a Colonial Pipeline storage facility at a tank farm north of Rome Friday night and ran into a ditch, and then to a creek that feeds into the Oostanaula.

Authorities blamed the spill on a rupture in a line from one storage tank. Decatur Woman's Slaying Probed DeKalb County police" Sunday were investigating the slaying of a young woman found dead in her Decatur apartment DeKalb investigators said Carolyn A. Tucker, 21, was private-plane crash Sunday near Pinehurst N.C, according to the Moore County Sheriffs Department Alfred B. Von SchlegelL 38, was killed instantly Sunday when his twin-engine plane crashed in a wooded area off the Pinehurst No. 6 golf course, about two miles from the airport, said Moore County Coroner A.B.

Parker. Death Wilcox Trial To Open Monday books since 1976, charges have, been Prosecutors contend Mrs. Hanks' slaying was sexually motivated. Wilcox and his father have maintained they know nothing of the slaying and contend they were out of town when Mrs'. Hanks disappeared.

At a pretrial hearing, Wrentz testified he and Marshall dug a grave for Mrs. Hanks at the order of the Wilcoxes. He said he and Marshall put her body in a box at the company office and took it to the field, where they buried it Investigators have said Mrs. Hanks' lower legs were dismembered and placed in the box to make the body fit the makeshift coffin. The box was reportedly the type used by advertising companies to protect stored materials from the weather.

The state crime lab examined the remains when they were found in November 1980, but no cause of death has been reported, company worker, 78-year-old Ed Wrentz, was also charged in the case but has been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony against: Keller Wilcox. Arrests in the case shocked townsfolk in Valdosta, where the Wilcox family is prominent The younger Wilcox, a member of the board of directors of the Valdosta Boys' Club, is also president of the Valdosta Touchdown Club. District Attorney Lamar Cole and Assistant DA Dwight May of Thomasville have a list of 75 potential witnesses in the case. The defense team of Bobby Lee Cook of Summerville and Wilby Coleman of Valdosta has also drawn a long list of possible witnesses. Southern District court officials expect the trial before Superior Court Judge Roy Lilly to last two to three tweekL Jjiy selection begins Monday from a list of 125 potential witnesses.

VALDOSTA (UPI) Civic leader and wealthy businessman E.K. Keller Wilcox goes on trial Monday on charges he killed his secretary in 1972 and ordered two employees to bury her remains in a field. Wilcox, 30, was arrested in July 1981, almost eight months after the skeleton of Hellen Griffin Hanks was discovered in a buried box by a farmer plowing bis field west of the Valdosta airport Mrs. Hanks was 35 when she disappeared Aug. 31, 1972.

She was a secre-tary at Wilcox Outdoor Advertising a company run by Wilcox and his father, E.R 'Foiy'' Wilcox Sr, 73. Investigators said she left behind her purse, but there were no signs of foul play and her case was considered that of a missing person. The elder. Wilcox and 69-year-old company employee Lorenzo Marshall are accused of helping conceal the slaying and will be tried separately. Another Early School Retirement Pushed Continued From Page 15-A All of this has frustrated the people of Seminole County and made them doubt the nation's judicial system, according to Julian Webb, a Donalsonville attorney and retired Georgia Court of Appeals judge.

"That's what I hear almost each week, somebody complaining about the courts and the judicial system," said Webb, who noted the example most often used is the fates of Isaacs, his three co-defendants and "others similarly situated." Webb originally was appointed to represent Isaacs in his murder trial, but asked to be withdrawn because as a legislator he had written the state's death penalty law and because he was a neighbor to the Aldays. Ned Alday, his three sons and his brother were shot to death on May 14, 1973, when they interrupted the burglary of their mobile home. When a daughter-in-law, Mary Alday, showed up, she was raped repeatedly and shot to death. Isaacs, Wayne Carl Coleman and George Dungee, all Maryland prison escapees, were convicted of murder and sentenced to death on the testimony of Isaacs' younger brother, Billy, who was at the scene of the crime and served as the state's chief witness. Coleman and Dungee also are alive and on Death Row at Jackson.

This is how Isaacs case has gone: His appeal was argued before the Georgia Supreme Court on Feb. 6, 1976, and the court affirmed the sentence that June. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case on Nov. 29 of the same year.

An execution date was set for April 15, 1977, but two days before, attorneys filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Tattnall County, where Isaacs was incarcerated at the time. A writ of habeas corpus asks that the conviction andor sentence be set. aside because of legal or constitutional violations in the trial The chief issue in the Isaacs case is Judge Walter Geers failure to grant a change of venue, which would have allowed the case to be tried outside of the county where the slayings occurred. Later in 1977, a Superior Court judge in Tattnall County heard arguments and refused to overturn the sentence or conviction. The case was argued a second time before the Georgia Supreme Court on March 15, 1978, and the court denied the appeal about a month later.

With all state appeals technically exhausted, Isaacs' attorneys sought a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court in Savannah before Southern District Judge Avant Edenfield. The case then was moved to the Middle District of Georgia, where Judge J. Robert Elliott heard the arguments in December 1980 and denied the appeal in October 1981. An appeal now has been filed in the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals but arguments have yet to be scheduled.

If a three-judge panel denies the appeal, Isaacs' attorney can seek an ea banc or full hearing involving all of the appeals court judges. From the case can be appealed a third time to the VS. Supreme Court. If the nation's highest Court either refuses to hear the case or denies the appeal, Isaacs can ask the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to set aside his' death sentence. Along the way, if his case is overturned and Isaacs is retried and given another death sentence, the appeals will begin all over again.

Three condemned prisoners already have had their cases argued before the Circuit Court of Appeals and are a step farther farther along in their appeals than Isaacs. Late this year, one of them could become the first person legally executed in Georgia since 1964. The whole procedure is expensive for Georgia's taxpayers and time-consuming for the attorney general's office, which must represent the state in all post-conviction proceedings. State attorneys spend about 12,000 hours a year representing the state Department of Offender Rehabilitation, and a "significant number" of those involve the death penalty, said executive assistant attorney general Bob Stubbs. "We have far more litigation involving the death penalty than other types," said Stubbs, who estimated that the hours spent are equivalent to a ulltime job for seven of the approximately 60 lawyers in the attorney general's office and cost more than 8560,000, according to a two-year-old estimate.

But some attorneys who represent condemned prisoners say the lengthy appeals are necessary to avoid executing the wrong person. Since Georgia's new death penalty statue has been on the dropped against two men Earl Charles and Jerry Banks who had been sentenced to die in the electric chair. "I can tell you it is absolutely impor- tant in death cases to have as many appeals' as possible for the simple reason that the death penalty is irrevocable," -said state Rep. Bobby Hill, D-Savannah, who represented Isaacs in his trial, "It's hot like a case where you could set aside the detention or let someone out "In a case where you put someone to death, that is forever. That's why every precaution needs to be taken if for no other reason," said Hill, who opposes capital punishment and argued against it in the 1972 Furman case when the VS.

Supreme Court overturned Georgia's death penalty statue, The Georgia General Assembly later wrote a new law which was approved by the court in a 1976 case. "The death penalty is obviously the harshest, most unknown and unused penalty in any culture," he added. "In view of that, one has to be insured that it not be used improperly if it is used at all." But Webb said he thinks there, should be just one appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court and that he doesn't "think the VS. District Court ought to have the power to delay a sentence passed upon by the supreme court of the state unless, of course, the federal constitution is violated." In August 1980, the Georgia Supreme Court enacted a new "unified appeal" for death penalty cases. The unified appeal gives both the prosecution and defense a checklist of the most common errors and mandates a post-conviction hearing in which the trial judge asks the defense to raise all the appeals it wishes to make.

The appeal then automatically goes to the state Supreme Court However, the constitutionality of that procedure which would reduce the time for state court appeals but have no effect on federal court appeals now is being challenged in court by some of the most recently condemned prisoners. Unified appeal "hasn't meant anything yet," said Stubbs of the attorney general's office. "The purpose is to cut down on (repetitious) attacks in the state courts. It will make the defense do his objections in a timely fashion." about a reduction in a logical yet humanistic way, then certainly you want to do." Barnes added that in a recent statement to employees, Crim said he hoped that a combination of factors, Including; retirement incentives and general tion, could trim the number of employees to the point that no reduction in force would be needed. It calls for the system's most compe- tent employees to be retained if a layoff' is necessary.

The new policy replaced one which used seniority to determine' who was laid off. The new policy was vigorously pro-' tested by organizations representing teachers and other school-system employees and became a campaign issue in the school board's fall election. Most recently, the Atlanta Association of Educators called the policy a "strike issue," but has taken no other concrete action to block implementation of the policy. However, the school system's adminis- tration apparently had put little work into improving retirement incentives until Superintendent Alonzo Crira created a committee to develop a proposal Crim has named Jarvis Barnes, assistant superintendent for research and evaluation, to head the study committee, which will make recommendations in late January or early February on the retirement issue. Asked if the early retirement plan could be characterized as an attempt by the superintendent to avoid implementing the system's controversial competency-based layoff policy, Barnes said, "We have to reduce staff.

The question is how we do it There's many ways to reduce staff other than through a reduction in force." He added, "Everybody would like to think that some way or another, we wouldn't have to have a reduction in force. Anything that can be done to bring By Sharon J. Salyer Contllutkn Stiff Wriltr As part of a strategy to trim school-system expenses by $15 million, Atlanta public-school officials are scrambling to come up with incentives for employees to take early retirement School officials estimated last week that there are 30 to 50 administrators with the right might agree to take an early retirement and thus save the school system money. The school system is facing a 1982-83 school year budget in which expenses must be trimmed by $15 million. School officials have discussed closing up to 10 schools, raising property taxes by 2.25 mills, cutting area and central office staff by 10 percent and giving up the operation of public-broadcasting radio and television stations as cost-cutting measures.

For several months, school board members have urged development of an improved early retirement plan. Board Will Vote On Mays Replacement Dawson that that's going to happen HI change that" he said. Asked if that meant he would consider withdrawing, he said, "Let's just say Bob Waymer will be willing to make peace." Waymer had said previously he would not permit his candidacy to cause a rift on the board. "The only thing Tve committed myself to is to try to see thai It's not a knock-down dragout thing like MARTA," he said Sunday, referring to the MARTA board inability so far to reach a decision on a chairman for the coming year. Hearing On Control Of Wells Set By John Brady Comfflution Staff Writar 'The Atlanta Board of Education will vote Monday night on a new president to succeed recently retired Benjamin and board members contacted Sunday indicated it is still anybody's guess as to which of the four declared candidates for the post will be elected.

Four of the board's nine members are actively running for the job incumbent members June Cofer and Richard Ray-mer, and newcomers Bob Waymer and D.F. Glover. "We're no closer to a solution than before," board member Preston Williams said. "I just don't know at this point" Williams said he bad not been able to get "any kind of indication" as to which way the vote might go. He noted that many of the board members had been out of town for the holidays, and contact with them had thus been limited.

Board member Joe Martin, noting that he had supported Ms. Cofer from the outset said he expected the race to boil down to a contest between Ms. Cofer and Raymer. He said he felt that with the board facing some difficult choices coming in the year ahead, a newcomer would be at a disadvantage in trying to get acclimated to running the board. "It would be unfair to them and to the board," he said.

He said he would be happy with either Ms. Cofer or Ray-irer as president and mentioned board member Carolyn Crowder as a possible wild card should a deadlock develop. He also said Mrs. Crowder should be considered a possible candidate for the vice presidency of the board, although hams is the only announced candidate for the post Despite the surfeit of candidates, however, candidate Waymer said he felt a deadlock was unlikely. "There won't be a deadlock," Waymer said.

"Before I see ty Tht AuoctoM Prtu The state Environmental Protection Division has sched leader came in, picked op the Bible, pretending to be Billy Graham, and read mockingly from the scriptures. And then he suddenly was overcome. He ran front the bouse. I found him out back praying. That was in 1967 and a wonderful thing began to happen.

Some of those gang members became ministers and others are community leaders today. That was a turning point for me. It gave me the incentive to promote Christianity as a cure for what ails us. I'm not interested in working with non-Christian groups because I don't see rehabilitation outside of Christ" Dawson's drug programs were so successful that by 1970 he had received enough recognition to be named as one of California's five outstanding young men. One of Gene Dawson's luxuries is his music.

He treasures the upright Steinway he plays and when he's not at the piano, taped Beethoven fills the air. He sits at a curved desk oddly out-of-place in the simple structure, overlooking his garden, a fledgling orchard, and the little community of trailers. The phone rings. Dawson will be off to Phoenix, in a few hours to consult with a church group opening a shelter for drug abusers called Phoenix House. "Can you stop over in Dallas?" a friend asks.

But the call is pointless, for there is no time. His life cranks up again. Dawson cannot be still for long. "I love it here," be says, "but I must consder a move. I'll never be sorry I came to this place, though.

It has been right for this time in my life and right for others who have come here to and bear God. Here I can make such Ji decision." Continued From Page 15-A Although Dawson occasionally hosts a seminar, there are seldom more than one or two visitors at his farm at a time. Two other families who live in the area are California friends who help in the operation of the farm and upholstery shop. While Dawson makes his living through consultations, the upholstery shop not only provides employment to some local people and those who come to visit, the profit it makes helps pay the expenses of those potential missionaries who find retreat on the Dawson farm. The shop has been so successful, says its manager, Lawrence Lopez, that they've undergone recent expansion, hiring two new employees.

The idea of having a business to support a helping agency Is nothing new to Dawson. In his California work, he used furniture refinishing, thrift stores and gas stations as ways to make those centers self-supporting. Now, he offers his experience to others. "Too often," says Dawson, "I see social programs bite the dust because they are poorly organized. As we see Title I and II funds being cut some people are trembling.

They don't have to be business experts to operate a center which is 90 percent self supporting." Although Dawson began his official work with drug addicts at the request of government officials, he now works only with Chrisitan groups. "When I began the program in Santa Cruise Gideons brought us alible. Soon afterward, a gang uled a hearing for Tuesday on its plan to prevent pollution of Georgia aquifers by obtaining control of injection wells. In the bearing, scheduled for 10 am in tne Department oi Transportation building in Atlanta, the agency will outline the plan and hear public comment The agency is seeking federal approval of the plan. Georgia's five injection wells are used to store natural gas in aauifers or to draw cool water from aquifers for use in air- conditioning svstems.

After the water is used, it is pumped An injection well is one used to force materials into the eann. The EED's plan would prohibit injection of any type ofk waste mattfial into the state's subsurfaces. 1 1-.