Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 41

Insida this section Thursday, June 12, 1980 1 PRESS tJ HELP ART CALENDAR CLASSIFIED ADS DETROIT FREE PRESS pages 14-19 SYLVIA PORTER GDqc Final day in the lives of three young women "1 I I .1 Alone in the night in the city's northwest By ROBERT H. EMMERS and RICK RATLIFF Free Press Staff Writers Hazel Conniff Peggy Ann Pochmara Denise Dunmore I .52 o) Eight Mile Vo 8 -fc I sr fe I I 3 0 Seven Mile 1 M-39 McNichols Wf I Fenkell A Jeffrie Freeway 1-96 her knees and hands. The medical examiner's office found that her death was caused by "cerebral anoxia due to smothering." Hazel Conniff March 10 It was snowing Sunday morning, March 9, when Hazel Conniff left her parents' home in Port Huron to go back to work. She stopped the car on Chestnut, the street in front of the house, to clean slush from the wipers. When she got back into the car, she waved over her shoulder.

It was the last time her parents saw her alive. Conniff had driven up Friday evening from New Baltimore, where she had an apartment. She worked full time for Michigan Bell in Mount Clemens and attended Oakland University in Rochester, a heavy schedule even for an energetic 23-year-old. She always looked forward to weekends with her family as a time to unwind. When she would come home, she'd sleep on the brown sofa in the front room even though a bed was available upstairs.

The family's little poodle, Amy, would curl up with her. Conniff would study or work at her needlepoint. She would sit with her mother in the front room, the TV on but turned low, and have long conversations. She would make sure her two brothers and sister were getting along OK. Having a special fondness for blueberry pancakes, she would try to drag her folks out for breakfast.

THE LAST weekend went much like that. Her boyfriend, Tim Moen, 24, who worked in Detroit as a computer salesman, was in town visiting his parents a couple of blocks away on Court Street. Conniff went over to their house for an informal party with another couple. They cooked steaks. Then they built a snowman.

The young men were in a playful mood and eventually altered the form of their snow figure so that it became a snowwoman. On Sunday Conniff drove back in the snow to Mount Clemens to begin another hectic week. She seemed to thrive on it. She liked her work as an information operator with Michigan Bell and hoped to stay with the company and rise into management. She had been working for the company almost two years and had approached the job with the same enthusiasm she showed for all her other activities.

When she was younger, she had thrown herself into activities at the Griswold Street Baptist Church, always going to Sunday School and services, taking part in retreats. Later she was a leader with the Girl Scouts and the church-oriented Pioneer Girls. IN JUNIOR high school and high school, she took part in clubs and sports and worked with the school paper. Later, as a waitress at Howard Johnson's, she always gave extra attention to the older people she served. And all the time, no matter what pressures, she remembered friends and family.

If she were out with a group, she would try to make all the members feel wanted. If a birthday or Christmas were approaching, she would make the presents herself or buy the perfect one. If she were home, she would pay special attention to her brothers, taking note of the plants one was raising, worrying over whether the other really should join the Marines. Conniff worked at the Bell office in Mount Clemens all day Sunday, then went home to her two-bedroom apartment on Jefferson Road in New Baltimore. She lived alone but was looking for a suitable roomate, perhaps a coworker.

She spent the evening studying. (She seldom went out anyway, except for the weekends. Her only real vices were chocolate, root beer and the Wednesday night spaghetti specials at the Harvest Table in New Baltimore.) SHE HAD a routine day at work Monday, March 10. She stayed at her console with its blinking lights, answering questions from people calling information for phone numbers. She took her half hour lunch break in the employe lunch room.

She chatted with some of the other operators about her classes and her boyfriend. That evening she drove her Chevette to Oakland University in Rochester for her class in the law of the press. She had trouble keeping her mind on the class. An economics assignment was due soon, and she split her attention between that and what her professor, William White, was saying. Conniff rarely left classes early.

But this night during a break at about 10 minutes to nine, she gathered her books and papers and headed for her car. She left a note for classmate Jon Mclhnes, asking that he call her at her boyfriend's house should White make an assignment. Then she drove toward Detroit's northwest side where her See MURDER, Page 6C A TORNADO warning had just been lifted, but the rustlings she heard through an open window that night didn't sound like the wind. Rita Monteiro called the police. The noises seemed to indicate a prowler near the house in the 1 9000 block of Burgess she shared with her sister, Linda Monteiro, on Detroit's northwest side.

But Linda wasn't home. Rita Monteiro, a Wayne State University student, was alone in the house. Her sister, a recent data processing school graduate, was supposed to be listening to jazz at a club. Twenty minutes later, Rita Monteiro heard what she thought was muffled screaming. She called the police again with new urgency in her voice.

Detroit Police arrived at 4:06 a.m. May 31 to find Linda Monteiro, 27, dead on the driveway, her red MG Midget parked on the street in front of the house, a pool of blood near her head, a small mark on the right side of her neck. Her car keys were found nearby. FOR THE 12th time in eight months 1 1 times since Jan. 1 a young woman had been slain in Detroit.

Police believe several killers were involved in the series of unsolved But they also speculate one killer may have taken four of those lives. The cases of these four had similarities: The victims were all young women. They were walking late at night from parked cars to houses on Detroit's northwest side. They were alone. None of the four victims knew each other, the police add.

The killer stalked them at random. Linda Monteiro was one of those four victims. Police and her family are reluctant to talk about her case. Neighbors, shaken by violence on a usually placid street, say they knew little about the Monteiros, who had lived in the house little more than a year and kept to themselves. However, friends, families and neighbors of the three other victims Hazel Conniff, Peggy Ann Pochmara and Denise Dunmore talked with the Free Press about the women.

From their accounts, the final days of the three victims have been reconstructed in the accompanying stories. Denise Dunmore March 31 Denise Dunmore dreamed big dreams: Recording contracts, herself in the spotlights, singing, always singing. But reality, as is often the case, fell short. She'd had a few jobs singing backup with several groups, and she'd toured with a small musical play. But at 27, with a divorce five years behind her, the dream of a musical career seemed to have drifted beyond her reach.

She sought alternatives, working for the Railroad Retirement Board, taking courses in court reporting at Wayne County Community College. Still, dreams die hard. And thus Denise Dunmore (who retained her maiden name after her divorce) found herself this Sunday, March 30, at the Masonic Temple, preparing for the ninth annual concert of the Larry Robinson Concert Chorale, a gospel group she'd been singing with for a half dozen years. She arrived about 9 a.m. with the 20 other singers in the group.

They practiced until about 11 a.m., then took a break. Dunmore went to a nearby Burger King and returned with a sandwich. She continued practicing, working on the two solo parts she would sing that night. She sang them well, although perhaps not with the feeling of other occasions. She had trouble concentrating and seemed preoccupied.

Normally exuberant, often loud, she was reserved and quiet when she talked with friends this day. IT WAS a change her mother, Louise Dunmore, had noticed the night before. Denise Dunmore, who had recently taken an apartment in the 10000 block of Santa Maria on the northwest side, had stopped at her mother's house to visit. Mrs. Dunmore remarked that her daughter seemed tired.

They chatted about her work and school. "When are you going to take the rest of your things to your apartment?" Mrs. Dunmore asked. Free Press Map bv DICK MAYER Four of the 12 recent unsolved slayings of young women occurred on the city's northwest side. Numbers mark the murder sites: (1) Linda Monteiro, (2) Denise Dunmore, (3) Hazel Conniff and (4) Peggy Ann Pochmara.

they finished the number. All the time, Dunmore kept smiling. The concert ended about 11:30 p.m. The singers and the musicians filed off the stage. They always went out to eat together after a concert.

This night they'd had reservations at Carl's Chop House, but because the program had begun late they'd already missed their reservation time. They decided on the Big Boy restaurant on East Jefferson. At the restaurant most of the chorale people sat at one big, long table. But Dunmore sat at a separate small table in a corner with several other women. Sometimes she would put her head down on her arms on the tabletop.

She stayed at the restaurant until about 1:45 Monday morning, March 3 1 Then she left in a borrowed car with three friends she was going to drop off at their homes. The last stop she made was on Lauder at the home of her friend, Jackie Brooks. THEY SAT in the car in front of the house for a few minutes. "You seem a little pale, a little tired," Brooks told her. "It's all right," Dunmore replied.

"I'm going right to my apartment and go to bed." She parked her car in a lot near her apartment building on Santa Maria about 2:30 a.m. Carrying her gown and luggage, she began walking up an alley to the apartment. Her body was found there about an hour later by an off-duty police officer on his way home from work. She was fully clothed and abrasions marked the backs of Denise Dunmore answered a little irritably, "Well, after the concert, you won't have to worry about it." They changed the subject and Dunmore left, her mother dismissing that one comment, made a little too sharply, "I hope you aren't going to be out on the streets by yourself," Mrs. Dunmore called to her daughter as she left.

Concert practice broke up early Sunday afternoon. Most members of the chorale left the temple, but Dunmore didn't go with them. The others remarked on her mood. Maybe she's just tired, some said. Maybe she's breaking up with her boyfriend, they speculated.

Other members of the chorale returned to the temple about 4 p.m. Along with Dunmore, they spent the next several hours putting on make-up, changing into their burgundy and beige gowns, talking. THE CONCERT was to begin at 7 p.m., but some of the sound equipment was late arriving, delaying the start until about 7:45. The singers continued their conversations and later took a few minutes for their accustomed prayer before a concert. The concert itself went off almost without a hitch.

Dunmore did her first solo with the women's ensemble perfectly. But on her second solo near the end of the program, a song called "Make Me Better," which she'd been looking forward to for weeks, she faltered. She began the song well, her voice rich and melodic. Then something happened to her voice. The sounds just wouldn't come out right.

She called another woman to help her, and East and West blend Isamu Noguchi and his art 7 l( un' 1.1. By MARSHA MIRO Free Press Arts Writer A few weeks ago Dr. Frederic Cummings, director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, took the evening flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo on a pilgrimage. Cummings and Suzanne Mitchell, DIA curator of Asian art, were on a buying trip, seeking Oriental treasures for the currently expanding permanent collection. But the real excitment of the journey, from Cummings' view, was their visit with sculptor Isamu Noguchi in his Japanese home.

Noguchi, who designed Detroit's renowned Hart Plaza plaza and fountain on the riverfront, is considered one of the masters of modern sculpture. His heritage is both American and Japanese his mother is American, father Japanese. He was born in Los Angeles in 1904, educated in Japan and spent his adult years in the United States. But in 1967, in what must be seen as an, effort to reach back into his Oriental past, Noguchi began making art in Japan. Ten years ago he constructed his own compound of studio, home and tool-sheds in the little village of More-cho on the island of Shikoko in the Japan Sea.

And now every spring when the countryside is in bloom, he leaves his New York residences for four months in More-cho, a place as in tune with his personality as his sculpture. There can be no doubt that it is his spiritual home. CUMMINGS AND MITCHELL are among the first Western museum people to visit Noguchi in Japan. Their motivation was simply to be with him, to know him better. "It's important to see artists in That sense is wrapped up in the adventure of their flew across the Japan Sea; the sea is so dotted with islands," Cummings recalls.

"It took over two hours by propeller driven plane. Landing is difficult. You land if you can, and if you cannot, you go back and try again." They went by car to Noguchi's village. It's nestled at the foot of a mountain with five peaks covered in a mist that rolls down from the top. Lower areas are terraced with vegetable gardens.

The villagers for centuries have quarried the mountain for granite which is carved for gravestones and garden sculpture. "Everywhere streets are lined with big boulders, so all the resources, the tools, the materials and people are there for Noguchi to implement his sculptural activities," Cummings is obviously why he selected the island for his home. Some of the huge megolith stones are stood on end just beyond Noguchi's precinct (compound) so he can look at them and decide which might be used for sculpture later." NOGUCHI IS the local notable, the lord of the manor in the old world tradition. "He is venerated by the people, and certain young artists have come there because they want to work with him," Cummings says, "but he is not as much appreciated as certain Japanese artists who are considered national treasures." Perhaps that is indicative of the delicate balance between East and West Noguchi forges in his person and art, cause for both his creative tension and professional success. His compound of buildings and courtyards is surrounded by a wall of local stone built without mortar.

Cummings is sure it is absolutely level See NOGUCHI, Page 4C BBIWBWR A Frederic Cummings Isamu Noguchi their contexts," explains Cummings. They spent a weekend participating in his activities, immersing themselves in his life style, learning his Far Eastern sure it would be a totally different experience seeing Noguchi in New York," Cummings says. "In the East he is Eastern, in the west Western this two-sided man." Cummings and Mitchell brought back Noguchi's feelings about the plaza and fountain in downtown Detroit. "He is very proud of the Detroit sculpture, because he feels it was one of the critical factors in the revival of downtown Detroit," Cummings says. "He feels it is one of his best works." The visitors also brought us their sense of the man who created our wonderful riverfront 'Energy qranite sculpture at left, in Noguchi's courtyard by the sea 17 1 Marsha Miro's art calendar Is on Page 3C..