The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 106

Carqlinas (The Charlotte (Pbscrucr Wednesday November 16 1994 SECTION PE Classified advertising7C David Smith: never doubted Father learned of confession by watching news when he learned his wife was responsible for the deaths of their sons 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex Authorities say Susan Smith confessed to leaving the boys strapped in their safety seats when she let her car roll into a lake went into shock I know how to Smith said "We had bonded together while trying to locate these Smith appeared on all three By ANGELA WRIGHT Staff Writer David Smith learned from the evening news that his estranged wife Susan had confessed to killing their two young sons Until then Smith said he had believed his story never doubted her for an Smith said during a television news interview Tuesday Smith 24 granted interviews to television sharing how he felt networks Tuesday sharing pictures and memories of the two boys an entire nation had searched and prayed for Susan Smith 23 now is in prison near Columbia charged with two counts of murder Prosecutor Thomas Pope says he will not decide until January whether to seek the death penalty was a very dedicated loyal caring said David Smith was a very good mother She really Smith said he had no idea why Susan Smith would have harmed her children wish I had something to go he said NBC News anchor Katie Couric also interviewed Smith for thought he was very noble and she said was not as emotional as 1 expected him Please see Smithpage 7C A head for business: After 50 years of cutting hair Martha son trims his hair Her scissors brought her in contact with Williamson of Charlotte is retiring Veronica Clardy watches some famous people including singers James Brown and as her 2-year-old son Javars Robinson cries while William- Brook Benton and jazz musician Louis Jordan Insanity defense conies into question Doctors have blamed drug abuse not mental illness for Phillip problems prosecutor says By CHIP WILSON Staff Writer GASTONIA A prosecutor chipped away at Phillip insanity defense Tuesday questioning why none of the many doctors who treated Ingle had ever diagnosed him as a violent schizophrenic Dr Joseph Horacek whom the state is paying $170 an hour to aid defense spent six hours on the witness stand contending that mental illness led Ingle to kill EZ and Sarah Willis of Cherryville Horacek spent most of that time under skeptical grilling by prosecutor Charles Hubbard Hubbard focused on a state mental decision to release Ingle in 1986 after finding his problem was substance abuse not severe mental illness At one point Ingle himself spoke up about that stay at Broughton Hospital in Morganton just wanted to get out of that Ingle blurted those people was crazy" Horacek testified that Ingle believe he was insane when he killed the Willises in September 1991 or when he killed Fred and Margaret Davis in July 1991 But the Charlotte psychiatrist said Ingle gave evidence of that in a self-portrait the Lincoln County native drew of himself in his Central Prison cell Jurors saw a projected image of that drawing which depicts Ingle with his head split open by lightning bolts It also shows eight hands reaching from the ground toward Ingle Horacek said those represented four victims picture is worth a thousand he told jurors saying that the lightning bolts symbolized the accused mental illness and religious delusions Hubbard asked Horacek why the Broughton psychiatrist who examined Ingle in 1986 blamed problems on substance abuse not schizophrenia a Please seeTrialpage 7C Hair Today Home Soon DANNYE ROMINE POWELL nearly always has a Sometimes the urgency in a voice makes you listen up That kind of call came a week ago the day my column ran on Susan Smith to Understand Bits of in which I tried to explore why Smith of Union SC might have drowned her two young sons The man said my column caught his attention because the question of is something he'd struggled with I was not expecting his next sentence In 1971 when he was 23 he said he shot his girlfriend to death He served 1 0 years of a life sentence before being paroled In prison he said had plenty of time to figure out why he did what he did pretty sure got it nailed but one thing still puzzles him No one he said not one soul in prison or out ever asked him why he did it No one to stand up for him The why of any situation always compels me So I asked him to come to the newspaper office to tell me his story We decided not to use his name only to say a self-employed Charlotte businessman now 46 neatly dressed and well-spoken He grew up without a father His household consisted of his mother his grandmother his aunt two brothers and a sister In school he knew he was smart but he feel the teachers encouraged him In fact he often felt angered and humiliated by his lack of attention to his abilities both in academics and in sports Also situations arose daily he know how to handle unfair situations and he said he had no one to stand up for him Finally he felt trapped between his expectations of him to go on to college and the utter lack of encouragement at school for him to do so Later in prison he would connect that early trapped feeling and the trapped feeling he believes made him murder Wanted out want out After serving in Vietnam he returned to Greensboro where he began dating a married woman a woman whose husband was serving in Vietnam always considered himself a loyal friend and dating the married woman particularly deceiving his friends and hers and betraying a fellow Marine made him feel wretched His concentration and his self-esteem slipped He lost his job He wanted out of the situation and he want out of the situation He tried talking to a friend but the friend disapproved of what he was doing and listen Rational behind irrational One morning he went to his to tell her he was leaving town that he needed time to chill He expected disappointment Instead she told him started seeing someone else He felt such fury he went cold He felt himself detach from her and from himself going to kill he told himself only way 1 could break the emotional state I was in" he said "was to blast my way out of it" The next night he shot her to death Like Susan Smith he confessed He identifies with Smith in other ways He believes she needed a friend to talk to as badly as he did He believes she felt as trapped as he did He believes they both lost something so important in his case his self-respect their judgment became distorted He believes that when we feel ourselves it might be too late to turn back why he believes we need options goals plans other sources of selfesteem so that in a crisis we feel so trapped He believes as do I always the rational behind the irrational Always the be- hind the "why" Woman retiring after 50 years of barbering Words to live by Five tips Martha Williamson gives her customers: "If you find a barber you like always stick with that barber" "Always keep hair clean and care of "Remember to go to church on Sunday" "If going to have the pleasure of watching a football game why not make it the Dallas By DAVID PERLMUTT Staff Writer She was supposed to last for but a few months After all she was a teenager inexperienced a woman And here she was in her own shop in the old Brooklyn community cutting hair hair months they gave Martha McClinton Williamson remembers months and be gone It was a profession the way they felt about it Delilah cut hair and made him weak "Well sir I had a hard time convincing men that I could cut their hair and not make them She must have been awfully persuasive Come Dec 3 1 Williamson will lay down her scissors and razors for the last time after cutting hundreds of thousands of heads of hair in the past 50 years Or so she says Her employees and customers grandfathers sons grandsons now even great-grandsons say believe that one when shop and opened Southside Barber Shop at 290 1 Tryon St across from Southside Homes in 1960 Mackey fol lowed the only one cut my hair all these years Since Day One never had to tell her how to cut it I just get in the She grew up in the neighborhood behind her shop Her father Ray McClinton was a landscaper who moved his wife Nannie and nine children into a large house on South Tryon He bought land nearby where he kept horses mules and chickens and farmed cotton and vegetables Martha the seventh child had an entrepreneurial and independent spirit At Second Ward High School she had taken barbering Her senior year she went to high school in the morning and in the afternoons to Woods-Morgan Beauty and Barber College at 1st and McDowell streets in the Brooklyn neighborhood She graduated from both at Please see Retiringpage 4C into shop in 1948 when it was on East 2nd Street and called Martha's Tonsorial Parlor in the now bulldozed black community of Brooklyn near uptown When Williamson closed that they see it tried retirement before Still her customers worry been sitting up at nights pondering what going to do when she says Willie Mackey 66 who first walked East Hickory road to be widened By NORMAN GOMLAK Catawba Valley Bureau HICKORY One of most congested roads will be widened during the next five years NC officials plan to widen a 2-mile stretch of Tate Boulevard between Sweetwater and Fair-grove Church roads from two to four lanes state transportation board member Ann Gaither announced Tuesday The widening is part of a two-part $125 million plan for easing traffic jams in central Catawba County Last summer NC officials began the formal process of picking a route to extend Tate Boulevard north to Highland Avenue That Tate Boulevard widening Because of technical problems The Observer was unable to record many of your calls Tuesday on your Thanksgiving traditions Please call us again today Thanksgiving Is a time for memories and traditions Tell us about your day and how you carry on those traditions Si Are you teaching your grandchildren how to set a table just as your grandmother taught you? Does your family play touch football to work up an appetite for the big meal? Do you invite someone who is alone to share your table? In Charlotte call us at 358-5150 Outside ot Charlotte 1-800-852-2803 Please see Hickorypage 7C 0RENOA PMNElUStal GEORGE BREISACHERStaH.