The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 32

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER 4C WEDNESDAY APRIL 14 1WQ families tell jurors about loss Murder By GARY WRIGHT Staff Writer Asheville The parents of Tommi Byrd and Derek Marston brought tears to the courtroom Tuesday as they talked about the anguish endured since their children were murdered last August in the Burke County wilderness have been Fran Marston mother said life revolved around my children 1 was looking forward to having grandchildren never have that wrong not supposed to Federal prosecutors called relative after relative Tuesday as they Alan Marston said he to when he learned his son had been murdered Marston his voice cracking as he held back tears talked about his life since the murders: day it matter where 1 am a hole A hole I fill And never He described his son as caring good and said Derek and Tommi were in love you had asked Derek for his last dollar he would have given it to Kyle Marston 24 described his brother as his best friend a part of me he said it ever be back" Fran Marston recalled Derek and Kyle growing up together When photographs of her two sons flashed on the screen she said: were always together They took care of each other It ity: hold life and death in your Finley has been in trouble with the law since he was a teen-ager and on Tuesday prosecutors introduced evidence of his criminal record Finley was 16 when he pleaded guilty to breaking and entering larceny and animal cruelty Last year Finley pleaded guilty to shoplifting from the Hickory Super Kmart The most dramatic testimony Tuesday came from the relatives of the victims Prosecutors flashed photograph after photograph of Byrd and Marston growing up There was one of Derek with a fish caught Another with his first football There was one of Tommi with her stepfather at her college graduation And another at her wedding As the sentencing phase of the trial opened Tuesday Assistant US Attorney Thomas Walker told jurors that Finley had killed for money and had planned the murders The prosecutor said justice demanded that Finley be sentenced to death may not be the easy decision in this Walker told jurors it will be justice We never told you this stage of the trial would be Defense attorney David Belser told jurors they would see the pain the murders had caused not only the families of the victims but also the family of the defendant without the possibility of ever being released is a sufficient punishment for these Belser said The defense lawyer told jurors they had an awesome responsibil presented evidence they hope will convince the jury that James Andrew Finley deserves to die for the murders of the 24-year-old campers Fmley his head hanging down wiped tears from his eyes as the parents and siblings of his victims talked about their grief The jurors who convicted Finley Monday on two counts of first-degree murder must decide if the 22-year-old Hickory man is sentenced to death or life in prison Byrd of Charlotte and Marston of Pineville were camping when they were shot to death Aug 1 at Lmville Gorge in the Pisgah National Forest Finley captured four days later in woods in Montgomery County following a massive manhunt confessed to the killings He told investigators he was down to his last $5 Fire spreads after stolen car Teens will be the persuaders at anti-smoking activities Fire Investigator Steve Pritchard collects samples from a car that was set ablaze early Tuesday in the 400 block of West 26th Street A K-9 arson dog helped identify areas where accelerants may have been used to start the fire Investigators said someone stole the four-door sedan drove it to the apartment complex and began stripping it before setting it afire The fire spread to a nearby apartment office building Damage was estimated at $80000 No one was injured was a special Fran Marston talked about how two butterflies circled the family when they spread ashes in the mountains in Utah Then she said of Derek: a young man every mother would want their daughter to bring Barry Butts stepfather told jurors how Tommi used to always ask him: is my heart He would always tell her yes and once brought home a stethoscope to let her listen to his and her hearts Then Butts cried as he recalled seeing Tommi for the last time at the funeral home and how he would have had to answer that question one last time Tommi your not beating Your heart will never beat else was doing it especially all the older Freshmen are particularly vulnerable said Jill Blackwelder the student assistance counselor graders have just come into (high) school and they want to do what they think is said Blackwelder who advises the TATU group wants to show them not cool and it can damage Blackwelder and other teachers will be stationed today around the areas where students usually sneak a smoke on school grounds Although smoking allowed on public-school campuses in North Carolina some kids still find ways to light up So far this year Blackwelder said there have been 167 for tobacco use at South Iredell Recent research has provided even more ominous ammunition for the group The April issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute carried a report of a California study that found that smoking during the teen-age years causes permanent changes in the lungs and forever increases a lung cancer risk no matter how much they smoke or even if they eventually quit research prize her focus on migration from Italy where her family originates to the United States moved around taught in Europe and around the United States so a Gabaccia said a personal By traveling to the towns immigrants came from and studying the houses birth records and public documents Gabaccia says she can better analyze how their lives changed when they came to America And learned that the United States is more accepting of immigrants than most countries are United States is unique in that it focuses a great deal of attention on immigrants as Americans in the she said Reach Jennifer Rothacker at (704) 358-5071 or jrothackerchar-lottecom i i torched FRANCISCO KJOLSETHStaff power Advertisers contend that billboards perform a service and many property owners argue that state and local governments tell them what to do with their land State law generally permits billboards only in areas zoned for commercial or industrial use but that stopped their spread While county commissioners in several Raleigh-area communities have imposed billboard bans or brief moratoriums Catawba County is the only Charlotte-area government that has succeeded in limiting billboards next to highways and interstates Catawba leaders have banned signs on their new 115-mile stretch of US 321 A 1997 survey by the national group Scenic America showed that North Carolina has the fifth-high-est concentration of billboards in the nation In first place: South Carolina Reach Anna Griffin at (919) 834-8471 or agriffmcharlottecom president of the campaign South Iredell High School is one of several Carolinas schools to take the issue to heart Today is at the school in Troutman with students and teachers wearing head-to-toe black to symbolize those who die from tobacco Independence High School a local leader in teen-age anti-smoking movements in recent years has its third annual of the Living planned for next week Leading the activities at South Iredell will be the members of TATU Teens Against Tobacco Use a school club dedicated to preaching the dangers of teen-age smoking The 21 members will hang posters of statistics at every turn stage demonstrations during lunch and staff booths filled with brochures and door prizes including T-shirts with a Calvin Klein-style logo and below it Sosia Garcia 16 will be with them She is one of the few in the group who once smoked and she thinks she can offer a telling perspective to those who feel pressure to start was in ninth grade when I said Sosia who lives in Mooresville thought it was the cool thing to do and everybody scholar to receive Gabaccia a UNCC history professor since 1992 in a national academic spotlight Her research has been used in public television documentaries and by other professors she stands out is that internationally recognized led the said Robert Mundt UNCC graduate school dean who served on the committee selecting this First Citizens award winner Gabaccia 49 will be awarded the $3000 prize tonightin uptown Charlotte It is the 12th year the honor has been given Gabaccia even teach a course at UNCC on migration As the Charles Stone professor of American history she focuses on world and American history although she sometimes squeezes in a few lessons on migration Still the subject has made up the bulk of her research with much of By KATHLEEN CURRY Staff Writer Parents and teachers warn and plead Newspapers report the health dangers Television spots show celebrities talking about it in disgust Yet teen-agers still smoke cigarettes The government estimates about 3 million teens smoke even though tobacco sales are illegal to those younger than 18 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 364 percent of high school students were regular smokers in 1997 up from 348 percent in 1995 They might be prompted to think twice about lighting up today The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids a Washington antismoking group today celebrates its 4th annual Butts with events planned at schools and campuses across the Carolinas and nationwide This time other teens will be doing the talking are particularly effective we believe because other kids and adults listen to them when they talk about how kids are being targeted as replacement smokers for the more than 400000 smokers who die every year from tobacco-related said Bill Novelli UNCC migration By JENNIFER R0THACKER Staff Writer Donna research has taken her to Italian villages put her name on university bookshelves and encouraged her to learn five foreign languages Tonight it will earn her UNC highest honor for research: the First Citizens Bank Scholars Medal Gabaccia is a historian of migration studying everything from the Gabaccia impact of immigration on native languages to influence on the food Americans eat written or edited 1 1 books her most recent being Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of unusual stuff but has put Bill would curb billboards on part of 1-40 free: Around Raleigh billboards hawk cheap motel rooms local radio personalities and fast-food deals farther east the occasional sign sprouts out of a com or tobacco field But there are fewer billboards than in many other parts of the state thanks to tougher zoning laws and the stUl-rural character Jordan said are areas that are still beautiful and said Jordan a Wilmington mortician seeks to save some of that I see why a traveler be better served by one of those blue state signs that lists the hotels and restaurants and whatever at an exit than by a bunch of bill co-sponsored by Sens Wib Gulley D-Durham and Eleanor Kinnaird D-Orange is similar to a provision Jordan tried to stick on an appropriations bill two years ago That effort failed Anti-billboard bills fared well either locally or statewide in large part because outdoor advertising companies are a strong vocal group with heavy lobbying By ANNA GRIFFIN Raleigh Bureau raleigh Get stuck in traffic on one of major highways and plenty of reading material from which to choose: Billboards touting everything from Christianity to Cherokee bingo to DNA paternity testing Get stuck on Interstate 40 almost anywhere between Alamance County and Wilmington and on your own stuck in a billboard-free blur of scrub pine and rolling fields an advertising shortage state Sen Luther Jordan D-New Hanover and a coalition of environmentalists are trying to preserve and promote At the request of Scenic North Carolina Inc Jordan has introduced a bill that would ban new billboards on 1-40 between the Orange-Alamance line and the Wilmington city limits an attempt to expand upon existing billboard-free zones set up by local zoning departments and send a message to the rest of the state 1-40 completely billboard Recently a woman working here made her annual pledge to the United Way Not long after another woman was able to go back to work thanks to a job retraining program I tII 1 v- if ij mi in i hi 1 1 1 Mu 1 1 ii if mi if If if 1(11 Sill jiMfij'iiiii mi 'MMHH HU Ii ll II II 11 HI II II I Mlfil HI! 1 II if if mi MIHI I Hi HII 'HI II HP i Coincidence? We don think so Thanks Without You No Way United Wy Serving Cabarrus Mecklenburg and Union Counties.