The State from Columbia, South Carolina • 5

0 WWW.THESTATE.COM THE STATE, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA APRIL 20, 2004 B3 Coroner identifies girl who was beaten, burned A girl found burned and beaten to death has been identified as a 15-year-old who had last been seen alive Thursday, officials said. Silene Y. Eaddy of 716 Fountain Lake Road, Columbia, was identified Monday afternoon through dental records, Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said. Her body was found early Saturday in southern Richland County METRO News Briefs Man charged in scalping identified The man Sunday in ing counterfeit arrested and charged connection with scalptickets outside the 3 Rivers Music Festival gates is from Alabama. Van Derrick Foster, 37, of Birmingham, was charged with obtaining goods by false pretenses and possession Foster of a fake driver's license.

A couple were denied entry into the festival when a gate attendant noticed their tickets were fake. The couple pointed out Foster, from whom they had purchased the tickets, to an officer, according to a police report. The officer observed Foster with a stack of tickets. The arrest was made at 5:12 p.m. Festival officials said more than 100 counterfeit tickets were accepted Sunday.

It is unknown if fake tickets were accepted Friday or Saturday or how much money the fake tickets cost the festival. The festival's offices were closed Monday. Foster was being held at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. 26 people plead guilty to food stamp fraud NEWBERRY More than two dozen Newberry County residents pleaded guilty Monday in a major food stamp fraud case, federal prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Henry Herlong sentenced the 26 people from Newberry, Prosperity and Whitmire to probation and community service, said U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr. In March, prosecutors announced that 87 people had been indicted on charges of converting food stamp cards to cash at a small grocery store in Newberry. Store owner Lonzo Stephen, Sr.

pleaded guilty April 2. Stephen has not been sentenced. The 26 defendants admitted to getting between $100 and $5,000 in cash. The remaining defendants are scheduled to plead guilty by. the end of April, prosecutors said.

From Staff Reports CRASHES FROM PAGE B1 the long drive to Columbia from Maine, where they had been working on a construction project. Both men had been wearing seat belts. "Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't," said Kevin Fogle, minutes before he was strapped onto a gurney and placed inside an ambulance. It was the only crash of Robinson's shift, but later in the day came a string of wrecks. Around 5 p.m., a young woman missed a bend on Old Percival Road, and her Honda flipped on its side and landed in a 5-foot ditch.

George Rice, the director of Richland County Emergency Services, arrived first at the scene after hearing the crash report on his scanner. Lowering himself into the car through the passenger-side door, Rice assessed the woman's condition, first checking for signs of breathing, blood circulation and spinal injuries. The woman had a bloodied arm, but otherwise seemed unhurt. Still, Rice helped paramedics strap her onto a gurney as a precaution. She was too shaken to say whether she had been wearing a seat belt, Rice said later.

Ditto a man whose SUV, only 20 minutes later, went over a curb and a street signpost before crashing into a tree in Columbia. The front bumper had been dented, but otherwise damage to the truck was minimal. When Rice arrived at the scene, the driver, a young man, perhaps 30, hadn't left the driver's seat. He was clutching his head in his hands, rocking back and forth. Rice sat in the back seat and checked the man's condition he seemed all right, Rice said before assisting him onto a gurney for a more thorough examination at the hospital.

The crashes were not among the worst Rice had seen in his 18 years withRichland emergency services. He said he has grown to approach wreck scenes as a clinician and is no longer shocked by even the most gruesome injuries. Turtles' troubles lead to crabbing changes after fire crews responded to a brush fire near Montgomery Lane and Pincushion Road. The Richland County Sheriff's Department is investigating the girl's slaying. Sheriff's spokesman Joseph Pellicci said Eaddy's family filed a missing person report with the Columbia Police Department earlier this month when she left home.

When she returned later, no one called police to let them know, he said. Eaddy was last seen leaving her home, off Garners Ferry Road, between 7 and 7:30 p.m. Thursday, he said. The teen attended an alternative school and was a former student at Dreher High School, he said. Eaddy's family would not comment Thursday.

Lauren Leach Four killed in plane crash Aircraft went down just after takeoff from Greenwood County Airport By JENNY BURNS The Associated Press GREENWOOD Four people died Monday after their plane crashed just after takeoff from Greenwood County Airport, Sheriff's Lt. Jimmy Boggs said. The Cirrus plane carrying four men crashed in a wooded area about 2 p.m., less than a mile from the airport and about 100 yards from a home in a subdivision, Boggs said. He did not know the names of the victims. "The plane just totally disintegrated when it crashed to the ground," Boggs said.

"I went to the crash site; I didn't even see the first piece of scrap. It was just a big burnt area where it had landed." Greenwood County Coroner Jim Coursey identified the pilot as Troy Sufferling, 37, of Kennesaw, Ga. The names of the three passengers were withheld until their families could be notified, Coursey said. The plane was registered to Attic Aircraft Leasing in Marietta, according to information on the Federal Aviation Administration's Web site. The plane crashed near Angie Robertson's back yard.

The 38- year-old mother was on the phone and happened to be looking out the window when she heard a "whistling and screeching sound kind of like a train." But, Rice said, he never ceases to be frustrated by the fact that many collisions could have been averted and the damage minimized. While technology has made cars safer, crumple zones and air bags haven't made the seat belt any less essential, he said. "Air bags aren't sufficient precaution," Rice said. "What often happens is you hit a car, the air bag pops, and then you spin off and hit a telephone pole, when the bag's deflated. You need to wear a seat belt." Reach Wachter at (803)771- 8404 or WALLACE ASSOCIATED PRESS Volunteer firefighters guard the smoldering wreckage of a single-propeller aircraft that crashed Monday near Greenwood County Airport.

Robertson saw a piece of the plane falling and a burst of flames from her two-story, fourbedroom home. She grabbed her 3-year-old daughter, the dog and called 911 before heading to the front yard. "I'm glad we weren't outside," Robertson said. "On a normal, pretty day like this, we would have been outside." Boggs said the plane was on the ground in Greenwood for less than an hour, but he did not know where the plane had come from or where it was headed. Lonnie Smith of the Greenwood Sheriff's Office said authorities had identified the pilot but would not release the information until family members were notified.

Beyond Robertson's chainlinked fence was a pile of metal scraps and a tree broken in half. Draan Kelly, 27, was in his yard when the plane went down near his home. He estimated the crash site was less than a mile from his house, but he could not get too close because police had blocked off the roads. "I didn't see it, but I heard it," said Kelly, who had a day off from his job at Big Lots. "I was putting my lawnmower up.

When I came out of the garage, I heard a loud boom and saw the smoke." Greenwood is about 75 miles west of Columbia. NAACP award named for Althea Gibson The state chapter of the NAACP is starting a new recognition program for outstanding student athletes. An awards ceremony will be held Saturday at Claflin University in Orangeburg to recognize the first male and female Student Athletes of the Year. The awards will be named for the late Althea Gibson, tennis great and South Carolina native. The Palmetto.

Student Athletic and Scholastic Achievement Awards program will motivate students, said Lonnie Randolph, president of the state NAACP. "We will begin a new statewide tradition of rewarding excellence that will inspire students to achieve and educators to mentor those under their tutelage," Randolph said in a statement. Students will be recognized in several sports categories: basketball (male and female); volleyball; soccer (male and female); softball; baseball; track and field (male and female); football; and individual sports (such as golf, wrestling and tennis). For more information about Saturday's ceremony, see the NAACP's state Web site at www.scnaacp.org. From Staff Reports Just don't dress me up all fancy.

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OSTEI 2003 S.C. wildlife officials modify guidelines after leatherbacks are tangled in lines By JOEY HOLLEMAN Staff Writer South Carolina wildlife officials have asked commercial crabbers to modify their traps after two endangered leatherback turtles became entangled in the ropes attached to traps in the Beaufort area. The two turtles, entangled April 2 and April 15, were freed by rescuers and appeared to be unharmed, according to the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. But the rare entanglements prompted officials to find ways to prevent future turtle-crab trap encounters.

The problems stems from an unusually high number of leatherback turtles migrating along the South Carolina coast and from recent trends by crabbers to place some traps slightly offshore instead of in creeks, bays and sounds, said agency spokesman Charles Farmer. The state agency doesn't want to restrict crab traps offshore because the crabbing industry has suffered from poor harvests and foreign competition in recent years. The crab traps themselves sit on the ocean floor and pose no danger to sea turtles. Crabbers pull up the traps with ropes attached to marking buoys. In both recent cases, the turtles became entangled in ropes attached to a second, or trailer, buoy attached to traps in areas where strong tides or currents might pull the first buoy un- TEACHERS FROM PAGE B1 The plaintiff districts have difficulty recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers, which inhibits their ability to improve student achievement, he said.

But the state can enact policies to improve the quality of teachers in the schools, Berry testified. "We know what to do," he said. "We just have to build the political will to do so." Also Monday, Molly Spearman, deputy superintendent for the state Department of Educa- derwater, Farmer said. State officials stressed that commercial crabbers have note done anything illegal. In the past, the common practice of using trailer buoys hasn't been a problem.

On April 16, the Department of Natural Resources sent advisories to commercial crabbers asking them to cut any trailer buoys. They were warned that future entanglements in trailer buoys could lead to prosecution of the trap owners for violating the federal Endangered Species Act. Also, additional entanglements could force the state agency to close commercial crabbing in the ocean until the leatherback migration ends in late May. Farmer said crabbers have been cooperative. Bryan Boulineau, a commercial crabber who has about 150 crab pots off the south end of Hilton Head Island, said in a statement that he started cutting buoy lines last weekend.

"I don't have a problem with doing this," Boulineau said. "If you damage anything out here, to me that's the start of hurting every-, thing. If the turtles disappear, other things could change." Crabbing in estuaries and bays isn't a concern because leatherbacks usually stay in the ocean, where they feed on jellyfish. The state agency conducts weekly flights during April and May to count the number of leatherbacks migrating through the area. A flyover on April 15 located 41 leatherbacks between Bull Island north of Charleston and the Savannah River.

Reach Holleman at (803) 771- 8366 or tion, testified that the state's budget process is broken as it relates to education funding. "The Department of Education requests what should deliver an adequate program," she testified. "Somewhere along the process, that program is not being funded." Poorer, rural districts do not have the property tax base to make up the difference, Spearman said. Berry is expected to continue his testimony today. Reach Roko at (803) 771-8409 or BEAUTIFUL PERENNIALS Sterling Garden Center Enter at 320 Senate Columbia, 10am SC 6pm 29201 (803)252-7333 49539-49 does your child: PARENTS, slowly or too hard Work Have trouble staying on task they have Forget read what just Avoid school work or homework Fail to copy assignments Have trouble reading or spelling Need things repeated These are warning signs of learning troubles caused by poor processing skills.

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