The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 1

Eerie, abandoned house may furnish link to identity of Atlanta child-killer ATLANTA (UPI) Police hope an abandoned house where searchers found children's shoes and clothing as well as axes, shovels and two Bibles nailed open to a wall will provide clues to the slayings and disappearances of 15 black children. A source close to the investigation indicated Sunday that an arrest would be made soon in connection with at least one of the cases of missing or dead children. Volunteers who have turned out for 10 Saturdays to look for clues in the children's deaths were sent during the weekend to the house in a black residential area in southwest Atlanta, called Adamsville, after search organizers received a tip. One volunteer searcher who entered the house, converted from an old abandoned church, said the white frame building "smelled like decaying flesh." City Councilman Arthur Langford, organizer of the weekly searches, described the situation insides as "really strange." Besides the children's shoes and clothing, searchers found two Bibles, both King James translations, pinned to the wall with nails driven into the upper-center of each open page. The larger Bible was opened to the passages from Isaiah 1:14 to 3:25, the smaller to Jeremiah 15:4 to 18:4.

Both sections made frequent references to children and death. John Bascom, another search leader, said volunteers also found a letter in the house. "It was a letter written from a lady, I guess, to the man who was living there telling him he was sick and a pervert," Bascom said, refusing to discuss the names in the letter. David Westbrook, owner of the house, said he had rented it but did not know where the tenants had gone. He said they left behind their possessions.

Tracker Don Laken said his two German shepherds had found the house two weeks ago but he did not go on the property because it was posted. Laken came to Atlanta two months ago to help search for clues in the deaths of 11 black children and the disappearances of four others. A source close to the investigation said an Atlanta television station "wasn't far off" when it reported recently that an arrest in at least one of the children's cases would be made "soon after the first of the year." Cult involved? The source also said investigators suspect that a cult was involved in some of the cases, citing Saturday's discovery of the abandoned house and Today Today is Monday, Jan. 5, the 5th day of 1981 with 360 to follow. On this date in 1943, George Washington Carver died at Tuskegee, Ala.

Carver spent his youth in Kansas, attending schools at Fort Scott, Paola, Olathe and Minneapolis. In 1888, he homesteaded near Beeler in Ness County. Inside Bill Burke BILL BURKE, sports editor of The Salina Journal for more than 32 years, died early Sunday at age 57 after a long bout with cancer. The story is on Page 9. Area News 11 Comics 15 Courts 7 Crossword .....11 Deaths 7 Dr.

Fam. Circus ..11 Hospitals 7 Weather Living 6 Local 7, 8 Markets 7 Opinioa 4 Sports 9,10 TV-Films 12 13-15 Weather 7 KANSAS Mostly clear in the west, decreasing cloudiness east tonight with a chance of light rain northeast and freezing rain southeast. Lows in the upper teens to lower 20s. Mostly sunny Tuesday with highs in the lower to mid-50s west to lower to mid-40s east. i 1 1 rX Tf CENTS I SA Ihe Salina Journal SAUNA, KANSAS, MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1981 110th YEAR No.

5 16 Pages Great Plains leases Wyatt's Salina plant a find on an earlier weekend search. Several weeks ago, volunteers found olive oil and a slow-burning candle "sitting on some religious material" in an area under some railroad tracks in southwest Atlanta indicating a cult ritual may have been performed, the source said. Langford said he had also heard reports that a cult was involved. "I can't rule anything out," he said. "I don't think any of us can rule out anything until there are some arrests." Although Langford said there was no solid evidence that any of the four missing black children had been at the house, a search leader said neighbors reported seeing a black man and a black child using the house about two months ago.

Katherine Whetson, who lead the search at the house Saturday, said it had an odor similar to what she recalled from the area where the body of 7-year-old Latony Waison was found last October. "Two rooms smelled like decaying flesh and one had several mattresses in it," she said. Ms. Whetstone said one of the Bibles in the house was open to a passage that was "about mixing blood and murderers." Another passage, Jeremiah 16:2 through 16:4, said, "Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shall thou have a son or daughter in this place. "For thus saith the Lord concerning ARRESTING OFFICERS Police Constable Sgt.

Robert Ring, left, and police probatio- UPI Photo ner P.C. Robert Hydes, right, are credited with arresting "Yorkshire Ripper" suspect. 'Yorkshire Ripper' nabbed? DEWSBURY, England (UPI) A 35-year-old truck driver was charged Monday with the murder of the 13th victim of the Yorkshire Ripper and ordered jailed for eight days pending an investigation. Peter Sutcliffe was charged with the murder of Jacqueline Hill, a 20-year- old college student whose body was found Nov. 17.

in nearby Leeds. He also was charged with stealing two car license plates. The chief prosecuting officer, Maurice Shaffner, asked that Sutcliffe be held for eight days. The chairman of the Dewsbury magistrate's bench, John Walker, granted the remand order. When the court clerk asked Sutcliffe if he were represented legally, he said softly he was not and shook his head in the negative.

Sutcliffe, who has tousled dark hair and a beard, was composed and showed no outward sign of emotion. Outside the paneled courtroom, a crowd of several hundred people gath- ered on a cold afternoon, braving snow flurries. As Sutcliffe left the court, the crowd had swelled to about 600. Some people surged forward and police held them back. Police, departing from a longstanding policy against identifying a suspect prior to the filing of charges, announced only hours earlier that Sutcliffe was the suspect.

Vice squad police cruising a red-light district pulled the man out of a car and questioned him throughout the weekend about the murders of 13 women attributed to the psychopathic Yorkshire Ripper. "We are hopeful that the Yorkshire Ripper series of attacks may well have been concluded," Supt. Frank Morritt, press liaison officer in the Ripper inquiry, said Sunday night. Biggest manhunt The search for the Ripper was the biggest and most expensive police hunt in British history, costing more than (See RIPPER, Page 2) BIZARRE SCENE An abandoned house that "smelled like decaying flesh" and contained shovels, an ax and a hatchet was found over the weekend by searchers looking for clues in the slayings of 15 Atlanta children. In one area of the house, two Bibles were found (left) nailed to the wall.

the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land: "They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth." A striking similarity in all 11 slayings that has baffled investigators has been the placement of the bodies, which have all been discovered out in the open, unburied. Great Plains Manufacturing, Assaria, has announced it will expand its operation by leasing the Wyatt Manufacturing plant, 1621 Dewey. The Wyatt factory will become a Great Plains Manufacturing plant under the new arrangement. The Wyatt office and factory work force of about 85 employees will be dismissed over the next two weeks, according to Quentin Applequist, Wyatt president. However, Great Plains expects to increase its total employment at its Assaria, Kipp and the newly- leased Salina plant by 75 persons, bringing the total Great Plains work force to 250, according to Roy Applequist, president of Great Plains Manufacturing.

The Wyatt foundry will continue to operate under the Wyatt name, although it will be a separate corporation with its own management and work force of about 45. Wyatt Manufacturing will continue in name as a holding company retaining title to the Wyatt factory and foundry. Quentin A. Applequist, Roy's father and a longtime Salina industrialist, will continue to serve as president of Wyatt Manufacturing Company. The net increase of 75 employees is a reflection of Great Plains' recent success in the manufacturing of grain drills, Roy Applequist said.

Sales to 375 farm implement dealers in 32 states and Canada more than doubled in 1980, he said. The Wyatt factory will continue its Roy Applequist present function of manufacturing the Bazooka line of grain handling equipment. However, most of the plant's output will be the Great Plains grain drill once the changeover is completed, Applequist said. Great Plains currently operates plants at Kipp and Assaria, with a total work force of 175 persons at those two locutions. Wyatt Manufacturing ranks among the oldest industrial enterprises in Sulina, founded in the early part of the century by Frank Wyatt.

The first product of the plant was the Jayhawk hay stacker, a common piece of farm equipment of the times. The plant later was sold to John .1. Spaeth, who Joined the finn as a foundryman In the 1920s. His son, Frank, eventually joined the firm as a partner, and the leadership of the company was passed to another son, Ed, after Frank's death. A group of Salina businessmen headed by Quentin Applequist purchased the Wyatt stock in 1973 from a trust for the heirs of the Spaeth family.

Linda pushes 'pedal-power' By BEV CLARK Student Intern The only time Linda Murphy finds herself at a gas station is when she's pumping air into her bicycle tires. She's not the type to buy gasoline, spark plugs or radiator caps. That, she believes, would almost be unpatriotic. She prefers an energy-efficient bicycle as her main mode of transportation. Mrs.

Murphy, 29, 846 Seneca, either walks or rides her six-speed bike weekdays to Memorial Hall and to St. Francis Boys Home near Bavaria, where she works as a tutor in the Alternative Program. "I can drive, but I choose not to because I would say philosophically right now and politically, I love America more than I do the Arabs," she said. "Americans complain they do not want to buy imported energy from the Persian Gulf area. You have to take a stand somewhere, and that iconserving energy) is my stand." Most people, she said, generally believe she either is crazy or, at the least, a "health nut." That's especially true, she says, when she rides her bike during wintertime.

"My students will say, 'You know it's cold They'll give me the weather report." But the weather doesn't usually deter Mrs. Murphy. Only when it's icy or the roads haven't yet been cleared of snow will she take a bus which goes to St. Francis. Otherwise, she bundles up in a snowsuit and rides her bike the six miles.

It's about a 40-minute ride. "Sometimes it's a hassle," she (See LINDA, Page 2) Journal Pholo by BrlUgom FAMILIAR FIGURE Linda bicycle everywhere an an Murphy, 846 Seneca, rides her energy-saving measure..