The Spokesman-Review from Spokane, Washington • 2

f' 7Hl--1-' State will tmwestlgiate dhest irestFalcnt death By Russell Carollo StaH writer The death of an 85-year-old woman at a Spokane nursing home will be investigated by a special state Department of Social and Health Services investigative team. An autopsy Friday indicated Lillian R. Kissick apparently died Wednesday because of a tight chest restraint at Valley Crest nursing home, E12715 Mission. Forensic pathologist Dr. George Lin-dholm, who performed the autopsy, said Kissick was asphyxiated because of the tight restraint on her lower chest.

Mike Mervis, a spokesman for the corporation that owns the home, said Kissick was confined to a wheelchair and a doctor had ordered the restraints. He said Kissick received medication at 5:45 p.m., and was found dead about seven to 15 minutes later, the restraint just below her breasts. The position of the restraint was not unusual, when you slip down in a wheelchair and youre a woman, said Mervis. Mervis said state law prevented him from identifying the medication, but that all medical records would be given to the coroner's office. Lindholm said blood tests would show what medication Kissick received before she died.

We have no reason to believe, after our review of the situation, that there were any problems at the nursing home, Mervis said. We will request a formal meeting with the coroner on Monday, at which time the medical director, the administrator and the attending nurses will review the findings and provide whatever additional information may be appropriate for the coroner to reach a final decision in this matter. Spokane County Coroner Dr. Graham McConnell said information he received about Kissicks death, "seemed so bizarre I figured we needed an autopsy. Rodney Atkins, manager of the special DSHS complaint investigation unit, said an investigation into the death would be done, but he would not say when.

All I know about it is that allegedly the person was in restraint and slipped down." Atkins said failing to supervise patients in restraints is in violation of state regulations governing nu.sing homes. However, he added, DSHS has not investigated the death, and he was not sure of the circumstances. Valley Crest, formerly Opportunity Medical ana Convalescent Center, was under investigation in November, when a 76-year-old man died after the home ran out of his heart medication. The home was under different ownership at the time of the 2 death. The investigation prompted authorities to exhume the mans body.

Authorities, however, did not prosecute the case, saying it would have been difficult to prove the lack of medication caused the death. PAGE B1 jf 'V Vffft Aw on- IP i Si i A 4c a. i 4 4. if 1 -Tr 1 5 O'" V'7 s- -f 5 1 i 'v 1 i j. r.

ieV Staff Photo by KIT KING Fiddler on the roof, Chuck Lund plays for runners along High Saturday. Lund, from the Spokane Symphony, was one of several symphony Drive in the second annual Cellular One Symphony Classic five-mile run and Spokane Chorale Ensemble members entertaining along the route. Gardner attacker vicious Mangan to brief council Monday By Jim DeFede and Kerry Godes Staff writers Community activist Sarah Gardners killer showed in her stabbing some degree of passion or derangement or both, Spokane Police Chief Terry Mangan said Saturday. Gardner, 59, a recent candidate for City Council, was found in the back of her beauty parlor at E2225 Sprague by her husband about 2 a m. Thursday.

Police have placed the time of death between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Wednesday. Ten detectives have been assigned to the case, making it one of the most intensive investigations conducted by the department recently. Officials have refused to say how many times Gardner was stabbed, but indications are that her attacker stabbed her many times.

One person familiar with the investigation said Gardner may have fought back against her attacker, causing the killer to go into a stabbing rampage. City Councilwoman Sheri Barnard, who served with Gardner on several community groups, said she asked police if the assault was as brutal as described in newspaper accounts. She said she was told much worse. I came home that night and I was literally just scared, Barnard said. Its so close to home.

It was certainly a brutal crime, Mangan said. Capt. Bob Allen, head of the department detectives division, described it as a very vicious attack. Police said Saturday they still have no suspects in the case, Spokanes 15 th homicide of the year the 11th in fewer than three months. A motive has been difficult to discern.

There was no sign of sexual assault and police records show Gardner had made no reports of threatening phone calls or letters. A small amount of money in her wallet discounted the possibility of robbery. But her son, Anthony Gardner, said she sometimes kept her earnings in the back room where her body was found. Police do not know if money might have been in the shop and dont know if she had seen customers that day. Anthony Gardner speculated the killer might be someone his mother knew or had recently met.

"Otherwise she wouldnt have opened the door, he said. Maybe it was somebody who knew her or knew her work and just felt some kind of crazy, crazy hate. Word about the brutality of Gardners death has spread to the people Gardner most often befriended, the street people, the pimps, prostitutes ana homeless who are ever-present in the area of (See Gardner on page 5) Weflen offers $10,000 reward for wifes return By Anne Windishar Staff writer Mike Weflen, husband of missing Bonneville Power Administration employee Julie Weflen, said he doesnt care who took his wife or why, he just wants her back. We arent looking for a conviction just Julie, Weflen said, as he cradled in his arms a radio connecting him with several of the 24 groups searching for his wife. I have no in dinator Bill Freeland, are strangers to the Weflens, and there to lend an extra pair of eyes to scan the 225 square miles surrounding the substation.

Were trying to keep our hopes up, said Freeland, a BPA workers who has taken time away from his job since Weflen apparently was abducted. The care these people (See Weflen on page 2) tention of leaving this area until I find her. Weflen has offered a $10,000 reward for his wifes safe return. The 28-year-old woman disappeared Wednesday from the BPA Springhill substation on Seven Mile Road between 3:30 and 4 p.m., Spokane County sheriff deputies say. For two days, about 75 deputies, emergency service workers and volunteers searched the countryside northwest of Spokane.

When no leads were found by Friday night, the official search folded. Thats when Mike Weflen, his family and friends took over. More than 80 volunteers gathered at the substation Saturday morning, armed with doughnuts, walking shoes and concern. Many of the volunteers are BPA employees who worked with Weflen, while others are friends. Some of the searchers, said coor WSU chemistry research lends effort to male pill By Jim Sparks Staff writer You cant buy a male pill yet.

But when it evolves, Michael Griswold may have a hand in it. Griswold, a Washington State University biochemistry professor, has spent years finding out about sperm. Its an endeavor that isnt always understood. We get the strangest reactions when my students and I go out to eat and we talk shop and clear the restaurant out, Griswold said. And then theres Sex Night.

Thats the monthly affair in which WSU and University of Idaho researchers talk about the latest in reproductive work. That raises a few eyebrows, Griswold said. Despite the snickers, the work is serious. Griswold and his team just got a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Last year alone, his group published 17 sci entific papers.

It is a relatively new field, compared with research on womens reproductive systems. For one thing, the male system is more difficult to control. In the testes you have millions of sperm cells produced daily, Griswold said, where with the ovary you produce one egg per month. Until recent years, he said, male reproduction has been sort of a bastion for anatomists. But in 1972, scientists were able to isolate and grow Sertoli cells in the laboratory.

Since the 19th century, scientists had speculated that the Sertoli cells nursed sperm cells into being. We provided the first biochemical evidence that that was the case, Griswold said. In 1980 Griswolds group published a paper on the existence of transferrin, a protein (See Griswold on page 3) Staff photo by SHAWN JACOBSONi Dr. Michael Griswold sits at his microscope at WSUs Fulmer Hall. Boatload of ingenuity has gone into the Water Weinie The road to success isnt as rocky as you'd think.

Oh, there's a bit of construction snarl near Airway Heights. After that, though, its a smooth 60-mile shot west on some fresh blacktop also known as Highway 2. Its there youll find the unlikely end of this rainbow the town of Creston, where a kindly working stiff named Russey Kaleoaloha Maioho lives. Call him Russ, for short. Or Mr.

Water Weinie; hed like that even better. This transplanted Hawaiian from the island of Lanai is teetering on the brink of fame and fortune these-days because hes proved that old inventors adage: Build a better Water Weinie and the world will If I have a problem, he said, Ill think and think until an idea comes on how to solve it. I guess Ive always been that way. So when his boy told him he wanted to upgrade his squirt gun arsenal, Russ seized the challenge with the gusto of an Edison or a Marconi or the guy who invented the whoopee cushion. Three years later Russ Water Weinie is about to make a big splash.

Toys Us and several other big retail chains are looking it over. Dealers are opening up markets in Canada and California. Locally, the Water Weinies have been selling at $3.50 apiece practically as fast as Russ can truck them to stores on his days off. He expects to sell at least 100,000 of them in 1988. If you havent encountered a Water Weinie, let me tell you, it is the very watershed of simplicity, which is always the essence of a good design.

Take some surgical tubing, tie a knot in one end, stick the barrel of a bail-point pen in the other, fill it up with water and Eureka! you have one. The pressure from the tubing will fire a jet of water 30 feet. Russs task, similar to the difficulties facing many men of science, was to refine an original concept. Like the discovery of penicillin or the leisure suit, it was a process that took several years to iron out. The biggest problem was finding an easy way to But I found a way, he said with a laugh.

"Id give -em out to their kids, who would immediately start playing with them. Bang, the next thing you know Id have investors. Russ spent hundreds of hours studying how best to, market his product. He consulted libraries in his spare time and went to the Spokane Community Colleges Small Business Development Center for advice. He is just the kind of guy who is so nice and sincere that you have to take him seriously, said Joe 1 Cavender, a retired businessman who volunteers at the development center.

Gradually, the Water Weinie evolved from an item stuck limply inside a plastic bag to a multi-colored, slickly packaged piece of merchandise worthy of any toy rack. It was an expensive process that is still going on. Although still short on funds, Russ seems to always 1 find a way to keep his Water Weinie afloat. The biggest threat now comes from the findings of his patent attorney, who discovered that there are three others ahead of him who have made application for the Water Weinie name. Undaunted, Russey Kaleoaloha Maioho got to thinking.

The next batch, he said, well call the Water Weezer. load the thing. What we came up with was this, said Russ, holding out a small red plastic adapter that looked like the screw-on end of a garden hose. Russ explained. Once secured to a faucet, the tapered nozzle on the adapter can be directly inserted into the business end of a Water Weinie.

This makes for remarkably quick fill-ups, which can be of great benefit when you are in the middle of a nuclear watertight massacre with your friends and loved ones. Better yet, the adapter has a built-in stop valve so you can leave the faucet in the on position without flooding your neighborhood. Our competitor doesnt have anything like our adapter, said Russ. Only our Water Weinie does. So dont be fooled by cheap imitations.

Sure, a Water Weinie may sound like a silly item. But think of all the sillier things youve bought for your kids: the Hula Hoop, the Pet Rock, Nixons The real story here isnt so much what Russ made, but how he made it. He not only had a dream, but, even rarer, the gumption to see his dream realized. There were a lot of obstacles, he admitted. Just about every step of the way, theres been another obstacle in front of us.

The biggest one, he said, was convincing others, particularly investors, that he could do it. Columnist drip a soggy path to your door. Thats what Im hoping anyway, said Russ, who spends his summers as a National Park Service employee at Keller Ferry Campground on Lake Roosevelt. During winters, the 46-year-old usually finds work as a ranch hand feeding cattle. But no matter what hes doing, Russ Is one of those rare individuals who always keeps the gray matter churning.

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