Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 1

No Hurry To Buy New car cost is too much for some Business Monday, IF Tin: Mnn Hat Strut Tigers Top Brewers Iter's smgfe 9z wms it, 3-2 Sports, 1C For anything inexpensive goes Fashion, ID HI JO, fv 1 Monday it August 24, 1992 For home delivery call 222-6500 Hazy and humid. High 86. Low 68. Tuesday: More of the same. 25 cents (50 cents outside 6-county metropolitan area) On Guard For 161 Years Admitted killer hated prostitutes; Cops say he picked up 11 women, killed them during sex, hid them ing alarm was, we don't know Atkins did not carry rope or corcl with him but killed the victims tiy strangling them with their own clotft-ing or other item close at hand, investigators said.

The women were slain during sexual activity and their bodies were discarded with seeming indifference, they' said. "It was meant to hide them," an investigator said. "And no, he didn't take any souvenirs. There were no mementos." Atkins told investigators he went back to the scene of at least one killing, apparently to see if the body had been discovered. See Highland park, Page 5A by Joe swickard Free Press Staff Writer Benjamin Atkins, a former pizza cook who has confessed to being the Woodward corridor serial strangler, was moved to kill by his hatred of prostitutes, said investigators in the case.

Atkins gave detailed accounts of 11 killings that were intertwined with sex and deliberately drawn out, investigators said Sunday. The victims all women were used, killed and cast aside, said investigators who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He does not like hookers that's clear," said one investigator. Atkins, 24, was arraigned Saturday on three counts of first-degree murder for slayings in Highland Park and Detroit. He is expected to be charged with eight other killings Most of the victims killed since mid-December and dumped in abandoned buildings along a 1.4-mile stretch of Woodward Avenue in Detroit and Highland Park were prostitutes or drug users.

An investigator said Atkins chose prostitutes as his targets. "He was not a stalker of women," the investigator said. "He was not following women on the street." As a crack cocaine user and area resident, Atkins was familiar to many prostitutes working those streets and crack houses, the investigator said. The killings came when there was a "combination of opportunity, timing and mood," the investigator said. "There was some triggering alarm that set it all off.

But what that trigger DAYMON J. HARTLEYDetroit Free Press Confessed serial killer Benjamin Atkins is expected to be charged today in eight slayings in Detroit and Highland Park. BARRIERS TO GROWTH aim braces A a.1 -A i 1 a tiiiricane r' 1 aims strength 1 i 4 Winds could top 155 mp.h. when storm hits today XiWtf by Will Lester Associated Press MIAMI Hurricane Andrew surged relentlessly toward south Florida on Sunday and forecasters warned it would be the most powerful storm to hit the United States in decades. More than one million coastal residents were warned to flee.

The hurricane ripped into the Bahamas on Sunday afternoon with 150 m.p.h. winds, heavy rain and surging tide. The outlying eastern islands of Abaco and Eleuthera were hit first. There were four reported deaths. "It's on a dead course for south Florida.

I hoped I would never experience this," said Bob Sheets, director of the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables. "We've not seen anything like AL SCHABENDetrolt Free Press As chairman of a financing agency for minority-owned businesses, Karl Gregory helped a black subcontractor get past the barriers to work on the Detroit VA hospital construction, in the background. Gregory says blacks need to own more firms to employ more blacks. Associated Press The eye, or center, of Hurricane Andrew is visible in an enhanced satellite photo taken Sunday. this in the past few decades." Gov.

Lawton Chiles declared a state of emergency. Landfall was forecast between 6 and 8 a.m. today, said National Guard spokesman Dan Donahue. Winds of 156 m.p.h. could hit downtown Miami.

Andrew was forecast to hit Miami Beach first, then sweep across shallow See ANDREW, Page 5A 2l Lack of money, market access Li. -i i sium many macK businesses by Anthony neely Free Press Business Writer Jabs at Hillary Clinton stir debate about women's roles alvin Stanley sells wheelchairs, crutches and other medical equipment to the disabled, but some days, Meels battered and bruised. His six-year-old firm, Associated Medi Three-fourths of Michigan's minority firms are black-owned. When black businesses fail or stop growing, the region is robbed of new jobs and taxes. The blow is pronounced in Detroit, where nearly eight in 10 of the state's black firms were based in 1987, according to the.

U.S. Census Bureau. Vibrant black firms could help stimulate an economic renewal in Detroit, which has a 76 percent black population. Ultimately, the economic advancement of the state's black populace a top priority of civil rights leaders is threatened when black businesses do poorly or die. :14 vil By Susan Feeney Dallas Morning News CLEVELAND Republican attacks on Hillary Clinton, wife of the Democratic presidential nominee, have churned up sharply conflicting sentiments about the modern role of women, historians and political analysts say.

Clinton, who They tend to stay small because they lack financial staying power and the abilities to sell their products and services to a wide audience. Racism strengthens the growth barriers they face, but so do the management mistakes and shortsighted strategies which plague all small businesses, says the study. The Free Press obtained an advance summary copy of the report. Combined with the longest recession since World War II, the results have been devastating: Nearly 40 percent of the largest minority-owned firms stopped doing business in just the last 18 months. That's a loss of 93 firms since the start of 1990, according to the department.

Although similar-sized white firms in Michigan also have gone out of business during the period, "I don't think there's any question that the current economic downturn has had a disproportionate effect on minority businesses," said Jack Moore, author of the Commerce report and president of Moore Associates a Southfield research firm. See Barriers, Page 8A cal Services Inc. in Southfield, has never had a significant equipment referral from a Detroit area hospital or HMO. And the black-owned business needs such referrals for sales to patients. As a result, AMS makes do with a fraction of the business Stanley expected after years of repeated calls, letters and sales presentations.

The company had about $500,000 in gross sales in 1991 on the strength of 24-hour, seven-day service and referrals by doctors in private practice. Unfortunately, many black-owned businesses in Michigan are hitting such growth walls. Although some black businesses flourish, the state's hopes of producing a new generation of strong black firms are threatened by business failures and sluggish growth. A yet-to-be-released Michigan Commerce Department report sums up minority-owned firms: has been uncharacteristically quiet about the attacks on her, is expected to respond in an interview in the first hour of CAMPAIGN Hillary Clinton HSft NBC's "Today" show this morning. Mary Todd Lincoln was derided by Abraham Lincoln's foes as a Southern sympathizer.

Rachel Donelson Ro-bards Jackson came under fire as "immoral" for marrying Andrew Jackson apparently before her divorce was final. Opponents of Franklin D. Roosevelt wore buttons reading, "I Don't Want Eleanor, Either," in protest of Eleanor Roosevelt's strong liberal stands. Still, "there's nothing that has approached the attack on Hillary Clinton," said James Reichley, a political historian and senior fellow at Georgetown University, especially during a if- I PHONE XTJjIv 1 A new line of information Want to sell your house? Or plan a vacatioa? Free Press Plus can help. We can fax hints on getting a house ready to sell and luring a buyer, or a list of numbers to call for information on vacation getaways.

See Page IF for details. campaign. -t Conservative Patrick Buchanan raised snide chuckles among Republican convention delegates on the floor of Houston's Astrodome last week just by mentioning Clinton's first name. A lawyer and longtime children's' advocate, she was called a "radical feminist" who would be part of ah administration that Buchanan claimed would bring "abortion on demand, a See HILLARY CLINTON, Page 5 A Ann Landers 2E Bridge 5E Business Monday IF Classified Index 6D Comics, Crossword 4E Editorials 6A Feature Page 10D Horoscope 100 Jumble 7D Movie Guide 4B Obituaries 2B Television 40 Weather 5F Volume 162, Number 108 1992 Detroit Free Press Inc. Television listings and the Feature Page are inside Fashion, Section D.

7j I.