Times Record News from Wichita Falls, Texas • 12

1 1 12 A Sunday July 21 1991 TEXAS Times Record News Parade for troops draws thousands Wax museum mystieiry Two unexplained deaths fire still have experts puzzled Iraq after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded the tiny oil emirate of Kuwait last year Gen CAH Waller deputy commander of the US-led coalition forces and Gen Walter Boomer commanding general of the Marine Expeditionary Force were among dignitaries in the parade Dallas businessman Ross Perot of the DFW Welcome Committee had invited Vietnam vets' participation because he said their recognition was long overdue troops who fought in Vietnam were as gallant and dedicated as any in the history of our nation" said Perot While Operation Desert Storm lasted 100 hours the Vietnam conflict stretched on for 10 PhotoAP and Wright were murdered By Th Associated Pros DALLAS Troops from Operation Desert Storm and veterans of other conflicts marched downtown Saturday in a ticker-tape parade wrapping up four months of victory celebrations nationwide Vietnam groups also marched in the Southwest Stars Stripes Salute's parade that began at the Dallas Convention Center about 10 am then wound downtown past thousands of cheering spectators Color guards from Fort Hood and Fort Bliss were also in the parade which included about 4000 troops in desert camouflage tanks and other military hardware and several marching bands Thousands of troops from Fort Hood and Fort Bliss were deployed to Saudi Arabia and Digest Houston tops Miami as biggest drug city HOUSTON (AP) Houston has yanked a dubious distinction away from Miami by becoming the nation's main drug distribution center a US Customs official said District Director Patricia McCauley said Houston's ranking as No 1 in the wholesale drug trade is based on the volume of drugs and money seized in the jurisdiction which stretches from Corpus Christi to Port Arthur the Houston Chronicle reported Saturday Last year customs officers in 1 the Houston district seized 7000 pounds of cocaine and $18 million in drug money she said Seizures this year have already reached 9000 pounds of cocaine $11 million in cash more coming in every day" McCauley said Rigorous enforcement pushed drug distributors out of their direct routes to Miami McCauley said Friday in a seminar on drug abuse at the University of Houston Now smugglers are moving drugs through Central America For By Robert Wieland Associated Press Writer GRAND PRAIRIE Texas -After two unexplained deaths and a multimillion-dollar fire officials have more questions than answers in a bizarre wax museum mystery that stretches back to 1984 "There is a lot of information about this thing" said deputy police chief Rick White with the wax museum being the common link" Possible motives for the murder of the museum's coowner include gunrunning drug trafficking and illegal alien smuggling investigators say "I've heard all those mentioned" White said But no charges have been filed in any of the cases that baffle authorities in two Dallas suburbs Important records are missing and a key suspect in the spectacular fire that destroyed the museum is dead killed by a policeman serving as a race marshal The daughters of founder Thomas Bolton Patricia Bolton Wright and Sally Horning were co-owners of the tourist attraction Arlington police began asking questions in October 1987 after Wright died in convulsions To help her sleep she had taken an over-the-counter cold remedy The medication had been laced with enough strychnine to kill a horse and investigators ruled out random 55 tampering "Wg feel the person was intending to kill Patsy Wright" said police spokesman Dee Anderson No one was ever charged in the case which remains open Eleven months after Wright's death fire engulfed the Wax Mu- seum of the Southwest melting more than 300 figures a collection that took 25 years to build The figures and a large collection of antiques and memorabilia destroyed may have been worth $4 million officials said 1 Fire officials were told a faulty electrical box sparked the fire at the popular tourist attraction A preliminary ruling of based on information at the scene was changed within days to "undetermined" fire Lt Doug Conner said To Conner there's no question the September 1988 fire was arson "In the matter of a few minutes the whole building was totally Conner said "That just does not happen" However the investigation was hampered when the original file disappeared from a locked file drawer in a locked room at the Grand Prairie Fire Dept "It'did end up missing and never did rematerialize" Conner said He managed to piece together the pertinent information needed to continue the inquest The year after the fire with no suspects in sight Wright's ex-husband Bill Wright and her sister Sally Horning hired private investigator William Dear While looking into Wright's death the detective became suspicious about an earlier death linked to the museum Lori Ann Phillips Williams secretary who died in September 1984' The 23-year-old aspiring model had gone to the hospital complaining of severe abdominal pains Doctors removed her appendix but the organ was found artifacts including Jesse James' guns and climb up on a chair to get this ledger off a The detective also believes Poynor was seeking material he could use for blackmail "Poynor didn't have a dime until after the fire then he started preparing to make some major purchases" including a lake lot mobile home and boat Dear said "It was getting up in the hundreds of thousands of dollars" he said Poynor died April 13 in a confrontation with an off-duty Dallas policeman Detective Gordon Hager working for the ninth annual Azalea Run was run down by Poynor who refused to stop his car at an intersection "The officer was out directing traffic he signalled for the car to stop and the car just struck him" said police Sgt James Chandler Hager clinging to the hood of the Volkswagen fired his 9mm semiautomatic pistol six times through the windshield as he was carried 300 feet The officer was not seriously hurt but Poyner was killed Grand jurors later declined to indict Hager Poynor had been wanted on two outstanding warrants alleging felony arson in Austin and theft in Dallas County Chandler said Austin police said the warrant stemmed from a December 1990 fire in the bathroom of a church youth center Poynor was questioned about the blaze but disappeared after giving investigators a false name facts that came out about Stanley Poynor at the time of his death just renewed the intrigue that surrounds this thing" deputy police chief White said "We hope to get that final piece of evidence that allows you to put the pieces of the puzzle together" he said The 7-year statute of limitations on the fire investigation runs out in 1995 But there is no such limitation on homicide "All it will take to break this case is one phone call" said Dear "One person who knows something" Amidst the ashes and unanswered questions the museum reopened in 1990 as the Palace of Wax "There's a certain fascination that keeps people coming back" said museum official Drew Hunter who plays "Dr a grisly guide at the attraction a weird fascination that people he said "It's very classic a fear of getting locked in there after the place closes and having someone come along and throw them in a vat of wax" DC Glenn Cavett DC ColeHaan Johnston Murphi ft A detective believe Williams to be healthy She died within days and an autopsy concluded she died of complications from viral pneumonia Dear theorized Williams had also been poisoned and suggested that the body be exhumed for toxicology tests think Lori Williams was murdered to scare Patsy Wright to death" said Dear who believed Wright had stumbled onto something sinister at the wax museum Dear say for the record just what he suspects she found and multiple investigations have never turned up evidence of illegal activity Museum owners aware of the swirl of rumors referred all questions to attorney Phil Burleson Sr who discounted speculation the attraction is a cover for any illegal activity Much of Williams file was missing from the hospital where she died But the poisoning theory sounded plausible to Dr Reginald McDaniel chief pathologist at Dallas-Fort Worth Medical Center who performed the original autopsy Williams' body was exhumed in September 1989 five years after her death and McDaniel performed a second autopsy Lab tests failed to detect any trace of arsenic which would have remained in her tissue But the test would not have been able to find strychnine which killed Wright After the second autopsy Dear was fired by Horning 48 and her husband Stephen Horning 42 Burleson declined to say why Dear was dismissed However he said the Hornings were still "very much" interested in solving Wright's murder and were "making efforts" in that direction He declined to say what those efforts were Dear remains on the case working for his own satisfaction He has reconstructed bedroom in his office building and invites visitors or students at his private detective school to rehash the clues A bottle of cold medicine is on the night table A female mannequin limbs contorted lies on the bed The detective had hoped the key to the case would come from Stanley Lester Poynor a 25-year-old student mortician once questioned about the museum fire Poynor was arrested in September 1989 accused of pilfering a ledger from the museum's charred business office claimed he was taking a souvenir" Dear said "He would have had to cross the entire wax museum passing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Mark Brown 906 Kramer Rd Burkbumett 569-2266 If you are Pain to vertebral for an Most fU and Mexico to the Texas border and on to Houston she said Civil rights group ends Dallas boycott DALLAS (AP) A four-month boycott of Dallas for its legal challenge to a minority-backed redistricting plan has ended with a civil rights organization saying the City Council has changed its 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