The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 23

THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION Saturday, April 4, 1987 Page 1-B fpffi fWCi PHI 1 T1 Escape artist finds his way back into prison in Georgia the blame," Steeple said. "We try as best we can. County and state officials are professionally trained law enforcement people. They went to the same school dealing with Inmates that state officers did and should have knowledge how to guard against escapes." Brooks is back at the Reidsville prison, where he is confined to a single maximum-security cell and must See ESCAPE, Page 6-B By Kathy Scruggs Staff Writer Convicted felons Fred Dalton Brooks and Harry Trent Eason concocted an escape plan and it worked twice. Doing time in the Georgia State Prison at Reidsville in January 1983, the two feigned remorse and offered to help Dooly County law enforcement officers clear up unsolved burglaries.

Once delivered into local custody, they overpowered Sheriff Barney Thomas" and broke out of jail. Ted Kirby, who has known Brooks since 1968 when he first got in trouble with the law. "I can't see why they state officials would not tell somebody and let them know they were a risk and split them up somehow." Fred Steeple, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, acknowledged that local jailers were not cautioned in writing that Brooks and Eason were high-risk inmates but said they should have received a verbal warning. "We don't have anywhere to put times from the back of a patrol car. Brooks, 38, has escaped at least two other times.

One law enforcement official figures he has broken out of as many as eight jails. Thomas, who was locked in a cell in his own jail, questioned why local officers say they never were told the two felons were dangerous, escape risks. "After I got out of the cell, I found out they'd broke out of every jail in the country," Thomas said. "They'd get you to believe a story like con men," said Smyrna police Lt Three weeks later, they left a trail, of phony credit-card charges and suspected burglaries leading to Meadville, where Eason shot and killed state Trooper Danny Nash when he stopped them for speeding. Both later were sentenced to life in prison for the crime.

The Dooly County jailbreak wasn't the first attributed to the pair. Three months earlier, in October 1982, they used a similar ploy in order to go to Paulding County, where they escaped after Eason stabbed a deputy six Fred Dalton Br4okr 4One-man 1982 murder; conviction of1! Wilcox upheld Businessman ordered returned to prison in secretary's death SF H' crime wave is stopped White-collar criminal gets 3-year sentence By Donna Williams Lewis Staff Writer Two months ago, convicted felon Donald Gillette picked up his eel's skin briefcase and walked out of a DeKalb County courtroom with a suspended sentence, leaving behind By John Brady Staff Writer The Uth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday 'II a victim whose business he almost had destroyed by embezzlement. On Friday, Gillette, whose white-collar criminal record stretches across three states, returned to AL- FN Tr 1 1 A. 1 we same uenaio luuiuy courtroom.

But this time, he faced a theft charge filed by yet another victim and he left in handcuffs. "He's like a one-man crime wave," said Steve Roberts, the assistant district attorney who prose- nniA the DeKalb Superior Court Judge Robert Castellani ruled that Gillette had violated his probation by steal- A.iriAaiiiMllil ing once again. He revoked three iissM nt nnicHo'e alsht vourt nf i JONAS JORDANSpecial Lewis Ewbank sits atop the tractor he has used to help math of unusually heavy rains that turned the island's make roads passable on the Isle of Wight in the after dirt roads into a quagmire. upheld the 1982 murder conviction of a Valdosta businessman accused of murdering his secretary in 1972 and burying her body in a wooden box in which it lay hidden for eight years, and ordered bin) returned to prison. 7 U.S.

District Court Judge Wilb.T Owens Jr; had ruled in December 1985 that there was insufficient evidence to convict Keller Wilcox of the murder of Hellen Hanks, 35, who was a secretary and bookkeeper for Wilcox Outdoor Advertising, owned by Wilcox and his father. Owens ordered that Wilcox be freed on appeal bond and ruled he could not be tried again fo the crime. The state appealed. I Wilcox had served four years in prison before he was freed on $50,000 appeal bond Dec. 30, 19851 His attorney said Friday night that Wilcox had not been notified of the appeals court's decision to reverse the order granting bail.

Wilcox's appeal centered on arguments that testimony by Ed Wrentz, an elderly employee of thejWil-coxes, was not credible, and that police had coerced Wrentz. The appeals court ruled that Wrentz's testimony "was not so 'inherently incredible that no ftasojabfe person would have believed his testimony and that police conduct "was not so egregious so as to constitute violation of Wilcox's due process rights." I The appeals court further ruled that Wilcoi hid not been entitled to be released on bail. Wilcox's attorney, Wilby Coleman, said he was "absolutely stunned" by the appeals court rulinl te said he would immediately begin research on doss-ble further appeals. Wilcox was indicted by a Lowndes County ju ytin March 1981 for Mrs. Hanks' murder and the cor eminent of her death.

He was subsequently conv and sentenced to life in prison. The body was dismembered and buried it a wooden box that was unearthed in November 98D by a farmer's plow. I Prosecutors contended that Wilcox stran Mrs. Hanks 'because she rejected his se iral advances. Wilcox was convicted of the murder in MJ, largely on the testimony of Wrentz, who said Mat shortly after Mrs.

Hanks disappeared, he and arjpth-er Wilcox employee, Lorenzo Marshall, nowjde-ceased, were driven to a rural area by Wilcox aca" told to dig a hole. Wrentz also testified that lafei he and Marshall met Wilcox and his father at a company warehouse, where they put the body into a dx, loaded it into a truck, and buried it in the woods Mud doesn't Bog down islanders ffithout county road aid, Isle of Wight digs out probation, to serve those years in He also Gillette to undergo a psycho logical evaluation M.Hk t'v vfGillettel obviously Has t'. 1 pathological problem that needs to be dealt with," Castellani said as he pronounced sentence. "At some point, you just deduce from common sense that there will be another, victim for somebody like 1 Don Gillette if he is allowed to be outside of prison," Roberta said. Gillette's Dekalb crimes began in 1983, shortly after he was hired as controller for A.S.

Ballenger Enterprises an array of small businesses including six gas station-convenience stores, a laundromat, liquor store and carwash. Months later, owner Al Ballenger learned that Gillette had written for his own purposes more than! $87,000 worth of checks on Ballenger's business account. Gil-; lette confessed to stealing from Ballenger but disputes the amount As part of Gillette's original suspended sentence, he was required to pay Ballenger back an amount to See VNSON, Page 5-B 1 Atlanta Macon i sc1 I LIBERTY CO.rVOvJV iONNr-Yll of I Ewbank and a handful of his neighbors are frustrated by the failure of Liberty County officials to do anything about the roads, so they've taken to the streets to do their own makeshift road repairs. In a display of down-home American ingenuity, residents dig ditches, install drainage pipes and crank up their tractors to smooth the ruts that make automobile travel a bone-jarring experience, Ewbank said. Islanders even have erected their own street signs.

"Everybody's getting involved. It's not just me and Ewbank," said neighbor Larry Brachel. "Around my own area I've cleaned the ditches out and picked up the trash. I use my shovel to dig out the culverts so See ISLANDERS, Page 6-B By David Corvette Staff Writer ISLE OF WIGHT, Ga. Springtime for the 500 families in this small island community always has been a time to praise the fishing and cuss the mosquitoes.

While the fishing promises to be good this year, the residents lately have been bugged by more than just the pesky skeeters. Unusually heavy rains have turned the estimated eight miles of dirt roads here into a quagmire that sometimes makes it nearly impossible to leave the island. "It's been so wet this year, one guy had to sleep in his car because he got said Lewis Ewbank, a retired Federal Aviation Administration inspector who moved here with his wife, Yvonne, three years ago. JONATHAN MASSIEStaff IT DOT unsure if highway bill Flurries, freeze are forecast on heels of spring snowstorm will be any help for Ga. 400 bill were: 1 i v.

V. A VP: V) If -v i 'ft -4 17 ByBertRoughtonJr. Staff Writer State transportation officials searching for money to extend Georgia 400 through Northside neighborhoods to Buckhead said Friday they are uncertain how much help they received in the federal highway bill approved by Congress. Under the spending bill, approved Thursday, Georgia was allotted $319 million from the Highway Trust Fund. But the Federal Highway Administration imposed an actual spending limit of $281.6 million, said Jerry Stargel of the state Department of Transportation (DOT).

The allocation was $33 million below state projections and marked the third consecutive year of reduced federal funding to the state from the trust fund. In 1986, the state was authorized to spend $313 million from the trust fund, which is funded by a nickel-a-gallon tax on gasoline. Among the major projects funded by the $12.5 million for a $37 million project to widen Peachtree Industrial Boulevard from Jimmy Carter Boulevard to Tilly Mill Road. $53.2 million to apply to the $89.2 billion replacement of the Talmadge Memorial Bridge in Savannah. 1 1 However, Congress included nothing Georgia 400, leaving the state $121 million short of money to pay for the $268 million project.

'ff Congress also rejected an amendment to the spending bill that would have allowed states to use toll money in federally funded highway projects. State officials have considered making Georgia 400 a toll road to reduce the shortfall. State officials said that, even though the bill did not remove the toll road ban, an amendment authored by Georgia Sen. Sard See HIGHWAY, Page 5-B' By John Harmon Special to the Journal-Constitution A rare April storm that dumped snow on parts of North Georgia and metro Atlanta is over, but a few flurries and freezing temperatures were expected Friday night and early Saturday. "There will le a few flurries but no accumulation in the mountains of North Georgia Friday night and Saturday," said Max Blood, a National Weather Service forecaster.

Blood said freezing temperatures would grip most of the state Friday night and early Saturday morning. He said there was a slight chance of flurries in the metro area before dawn Saturday. Cold winds of 10-20 mph from the northwest were expected to hold the mercury down to the low 40s in the metro Atlanta. Friday morning, snow and rain caused officials of Douglas, Paulding and several North Georgia counties to close schools. Marietta school officials shut down the city's elementary and junior high schools, but high schools already were in session by the time the decision was made.

In extreme North Georgia, there were power outages, icy roads and marooned hikers on the Appalachian Trail. As much as eight inches of wet and sticky snow blanketed a band of the northernmost counties Friday, with the heaviest accumulations reported around the mountain towns of Blue Ridge, Blairsville and Hiawassee. Snow flurries continued until dark. Although road crews and above-freezing temperatures had cleared most of the area's highways by afternoon, a hard freeze Friday night was expected to turn roads into treacherous ice fields Saturday morning. Meanwhile, electric utilities braced for a long night in the northernmost part of the state.

Power company officials said freezing slush might snap tree limbs and power lines Friday night Despite the freak weather system, utilities for the most part reported only isolated power outages Friday. The hardest hit areas included Towns County, where about 3,000 customers were without electricity, and Floyd County, where another 3,000 were affected. See SNOW, Page 2-B Correction and amplification An article in Friday's editions of The Atlanta Constitution and The Atlanta Journal should have made clear that the Christian Council of Metro Atlanta does not contribute its funds to AID Atlanta. In an article about the Birmingham Turf ANUYSHARPSII( These tulips on the Marietta Square fell victim to snow that fell in patches around the metro area Friday. Temperatures were expected to dip into the 20s again Saturday morning, with a high for the day in the low 40s.

Club in Friday editions of the newspapers; the name of Jerry Draluck, co-owner of "Thoroughbred Tours," was misspelled. It is the policy of this newspaper to correct errors of fact that appear in its news columns. 1.