The Atlanta Constitution du lieu suivant : Atlanta, Georgia • A8

Filename: A8-MAIN-AJCD0104-3THRE created: Jan 4 2008 Username: SPEED10 Friday, Jan 04, 2008 MAIN 8 A 3DOT 8 A Cyan Magenta Yellow Black A8 Friday, Jan. 4, 2008 3 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ajc.com 8 A Cyan Magenta Yellow Black 3DOT File name: A8-MAIN-AJCD0104-3THRE created: Jan 4 2008 Username: SPEED10 Ga. death in Ghana still a mystery By ANN HARDIE Lonnie L. Davis Jr. of Riverdale, known to his family as entered the Navy almost a year ago to the day.

He never made his anniversary. On New Day, Davis, 35, and a fellow shipmate were found dead in a hotel room in the West African nation of Ghana, according to a statement released Thursday by the Navy. What killed the sailors remains a mystery. Their bodies reportedly were found at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, a luxury hotel in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, about 18 miles from the Tema Naval Base. The Navy is investigating their deaths.

The sailors had been permanently assigned to the USS Fort McHenry of Little Creek, which is on a seven-month voyage through the Gulf of Guinea. Davis died while on 24- hour leave with several buddies, said his father, Lonnie L. Davis Sr. of Lithonia, who had been briefed by Navy Thursday. I understand it, they went onshore to celebrate New The morning of New they tried to get my son up.

He was nonre Davis said. rushed him to the local hospital. He was pronounced dead on He said that Navy cials that a second sailor had died but would not disclose details. In the statement released Thursday, the Navy identi the sailor as Petty cer 1st Class Patrick Brendan Mack, 22, of Warren, Mich. body was being transported Thursday to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S.

Army command post in southwest Germany, where an autopsy will be performed, his father said. have all the answers of what his father said. want to say it is not foul play. I know. We want to allow the Navy to conduct their investigation and we want to have faith in them.

for the family, they owe us answers as to what he said. Davis characterized his son as the of the family who loved especially his own, 14-year-old Devante, who lives with his mother in Wichita, Kan. The Associated Press contributed to this article. Davis Jr. NEWS of the University of Georgia, grew up in Longmont.

at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Her parents, Susan and Dave Emerson, in Wednesday from Longmont to join the search. Little is known about Hilton. He was convicted of two felonies one for the possession and distribution of marijuana, another for theft by taking. According to public records, his last known address was on 11th Street in Atlanta in 1999.

Kimberly Verdone, an investigator for the Union County said Hilton is a of in disappearance because he was the last person seen with her. Police said he was last spotted driving a white Chevrolet Astro van with license plate number 76APZ. He also has a 2001 white van with plate AFQ1310; both vehicles are registered in DeKalb County, police said. Police have yet to say whether they believe foul play is involved in disappearance only that they have no evidence to support that conclusion. middle name is Hope, and exactly what God grants said Peggy Bailey, godmother, who is acting as the family spokeswoman and was at the search site Thursday.

Bailey said parents were alarmed when they heard that a man was seen with her just before she disappeared. friends described her as and familiar with the outdoors. Martial arts practice and frequent hiking put her 5-foot-4- inch, 120-pound frame into shape. athletic, very said her roommate, Julia Karrenbauer. runs all the time, walks all the time, hikes all the time.

If faced with a situation, be in her But athleticism led some of her friends to fear the worst that if she was just lost or hurt, she would have made it off the mountain or been found by Thursday afternoon. scenario, not on that said Chris Hendley, her former boss from The Arena at Gwinnett Center. of us are certain not Emerson went hiking with her dog about 11 a.m. Tuesday on the 6-mile-long trail, police said. Before Hilton was connected to the case, several people told investigators they saw her with a gray- or silver-haired man who had a backpack and wore a yellow jacket with black elbow patches and stripes, Verdone said.

Police say Hilton is about 5 foot 10 and weighs 160 pounds. In addition to water bottle and the dog leash, searchers also found a police baton of some sort, but it been tied to disappearance. On Thursday, volunteers who knew the acre park and its mountains best and could give medical attention were sent out in said 1st Lt. Brad Niebrand of the Union County Fire Department. By noon Thursday, about 100 people had assembled at the state visitors center, hoping to assist with the search.

Most know Emerson personally. People brought their dogs, hoping to a scent. Some who showed up in jeans and light jackets were turned away. The mountain was cold New Day and colder Thursday morning. Atlanta set a record low for Jan.

law enforcement estimated the temperature on Blood Mountain dropped below zero on Wednesday night, and similar temperatures were expected Thursday night. a very trail, especially when covered with Verdone said, noting that the area got 1 to inches overnight. As dusk approached, some grumbling emerged from those still at the bottom of the mountain who had not been rounded up into a search team. But law enforcement wanted to give the heat-sensing equipment on the GBI helicopter a chance to work without the confusion of other warm bodies on the mountain, Niebrand said. Later in the day, expressed concern about potentially losing someone else on the mountain during the search.

The scale of the search was unprecedented, Nie- brand said. Volunteers were eventually replaced by a team of 18 from Gwinnett County, who planned to use dogs to continue the search after dark, Niebrand said. It took hours just to pull the volunteer search teams from the mountain. Some of them were deep in Niebrand said. Meanwhile, miles away, authorities investigating the presumed double slaying of an elderly North Carolina couple were closely following the search for Emerson.

In that case, a surveillance video at a bank in Ducktown, Tenn. about an hour away from where Emerson was last seen captured someone wearing a yellow jacket using the ATM card on Oct. 22. now we see a correlation, but the yellow jacket certainly raised a Young said. call these things The search for Emerson will continue today.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the Union County at 706-439-6066. AJC staff writers Ken Sugiura, Christian Boone and Brandy Wilson and researcher Sharon Gaus contributed to this article. of items banned at the Games includes matters which are harmful to the political, economic, cultural and moral interests of government already blocks many Web sites. It prohibits stores from selling a long list of books and movies, including almost anything critical of the ruling Communist Party. Foreign television channels are permitted in some locations, but programs critical of China generally are blacked out.

Religious texts not vetted by atheistic government, which manages all publishing houses in China, are also banned. A September report by the U.S. State Department said Chinese have recently expelled foreign missionaries and interrogated Chinese Christians about with foreigners and potential plans to disrupt the 2008 Olympic the report said. Beijing has tried to downplay the restrictions. Sun Weide, a spokesman for Olympic organiz ing committee, said athletes and visitors will be allowed to bring religious texts into China as long as the books are not disseminated.

But Beijing has been less clear about how it will handle protests during the Games. Groups have promised to use the spotlight provided by the Games to illuminate concerns ranging from repression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, a grassroots organization that Beijing has branded an to long occupation of Tibet, which the Communist government has ruled since 1951. In a prelude to likely protests, several foreign activists in August hung a square-foot banner from the Great Wall that read World, One Dream, Free Tibet David Wallechinsky, vice president of the International Society of Olympic Historians, a group based in the Netherlands, predicted the Beijing Olympics is likely to be the most politically charged Games ever. are so many people out there who are so concerned about human rights problems he said. would be surprised if no American or European athlete said something about Tibet or the war-torn region of Sudan over which China has strong Groups including Amnesty International and the London-based Free Tibet Campaign are running campaigns calling on China to improve human rights ahead of the Games, which will begin Aug.

8. Other groups, including branches of the Falun Gong, have said they will stage protests during the Games to raise awareness of human rights problems. Olympics is a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity to ask China for better respect of fundamental norms and principles, including human said Nicholas Beque lin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for the Human Rights Watch. Human rights activists also worry that the Chinese government has been moving dissidents and potential protesters out of Beijing before the Games start. In April, London-based Amnesty International reported that the pending Olympics had become a catalyst for repression of rights defenders, including prominent rights defense lawyers and those attempting to report on human rights Such strong-arm tactics are not new to the Olympics.

Before the 1980 Moscow Games, the Soviet Union forced dissidents out of Moscow and enforced tight controls of the media, but some other clashes were likely avoided when the United States and other Western nations boycotted the Moscow Games after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. During the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Nazi government held Gypsies, whom they branded racially in detention centers, but removed anti- Jewish signs that might have offended tourists. The International Olympic Committee is discouraging political action at the Games, especially on the part of athletes. should be an understanding, and usu ally there always is, that is a sports event and not a platform for making statements, be they political or commercial or whatever said Giselle Davies, chief spokeswoman for the IOC. During the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, American speed skater Joey Cheek used an press conference to speak out about Darfur after winning a gold medal.

While Cheek was not punished for the statement, athletes making political statements at the Beijing Games might be penalized under an International Olympic Committee charter banning demonstrations and religious or racial at Olympic venues, Davies said. But determining what constitutes a demonstration is Asked if wearing a T-shirt would be considered a punishable offense, Beijing Olympic organizing committee spokesman Sun said it would be, while Davies suggested it would not unless block of people all want to stand wearing the same shirts. do know there are some organizations that are planning to maximize the opportunity of the Olympics to push for more said Bob Fu, director of the China Aid Association, a Midland, Texas-based group advocating for greater religious freedom in China. The group said in November that Beijing planned to deny entry visas to several categories of people, including of Falun and employees who can harm the Olympic intention is to block people who will during the Games, said Fu, who said he received the information from a contact within police force. The Beijing Olympics organizing Sun said he had not heard of any effort to stop protesters from entering Beijing.

welcome all the international visitors to come to China to watch the Olympic Games, but we hope that all international visitors will abide by the relevant Chinese laws and he said. Olympics: China expected to stie political protests Continued from A 1 Missing: Man who was seen with hiker sought for questioning Continued from A 1 VINO WONG Staff Union County Brad Niebrand (center) briefs volunteers Thursday hoping to Meredith Emerson, 24, of Buford, who was last seen Tuesday hiking on Blood Mountain at Vogel State Park. About 100 volunteers came out for the search. Courtesy of Pat B. Mitchell Meredith Emerson and her dog, Ella, pause on a 2007 hike.

Jacket may be clue for hiker By CHRISTIAN BOONE It may just be a coincidence, but investigators are curious whether a yellow jacket connects the presumed double slaying of an elderly North Carolina couple to the disappearance of Meredith Emerson, last seen hiking in the North Georgia mountains on New Day. Like Emerson, John and Irene Bryant were avid hikers, hitting the trails up to three times a week, their son Bob Bryant said. The couple was last sighted Oct. 20 in North Pisgah National Forest. Three weeks later, Irene body was discovered; she had been bludgeoned to death, authorities said.

Her husband remains missing. Police investigating disappearance are looking for Gary Michael Hilton, 61, who was seen walking with the University of Georgia graduate on Tuesday. He was wearing a yellow jacket, witnesses said. In the Bryant case, a surveillance video recorded someone wearing a yellow jacket using the ATM card at a bank in Ducktown, Tenn. about an hour away from where Emerson was hiking.

Nothing else is known about the suspect, said U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Harold Young. have any promising Young said. The son said he is also following the search for Emerson. crime was so heinous to murder an elderly couple like Bob Bryant said Thursday night in a telephone interview from his home in Austin, Texas.

Bryant said he believes more than one person was involved in his deaths. dad was a strong he said. think one person gotten away with Elderly couple presumed slain also loved to hike. Person who used their ATM card also wore yellow..