CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A man who allegedly left a trail of dead goats through several states has lost custody of his 200-plus remaining animals pending the outcome of animal cruelty cases in Ohio and West Virginia.
Christopher Weathersbee, 64, fled to West Virginia with 16 of his goats, including a dead one he'd been storing in a freezer, in late February amid an impoundment and seizure by agents in Scioto County, Ohio.
Ohio agents found an estimated 80 goat carcasses on his rented property — including one in the house and another nine in a freezer, according to Teresa Landon, director of the Ohio Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They also seized about 220 live goats from the property.
In West Virginia, shelter officials found another goat dead after a passer-by notified officials that the goats appeared thin and weak. Officials seized the 14 living animals — a seizure that was upheld Tuesday.
Weathersbee said Wednesday that he was obligated to care for the goats as a Third Order Franciscan. When they died, he said he didn't have the strength to bury them, considering the fact the ground was frozen.
"I'm one old man trying to fight city hall in three states," he said, adding that he is also seeking to overturn a 2004 animal cruelty conviction in Vermont.
It was not immediately known whether Weathersbee had retained a lawyer.
Weathersbee first came to the attention of officials in 2001 when he started seeking assistance in caring for his more than 300 goats while living in Corinth, Vt.
He wanted to start a no-kill goat shelter where he could produce cheese and wool, said Dana Starr with the Central Vermont Humane Society. He applied for loans, grants and even petitioned the governor for help.
"He couldn't afford to feed them and couldn't understand why others didn't aid him," Starr said on Tuesday.
At one time Weathersbee had some of the animals living in his house with him. The animals were allowed to breed and multiply and started starving, Starr said.
The Vermont humane society seized 44 goats in February 2004, she said, and Weathersbee was later charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty. He entered into a plea agreement under which he agreed to take his goats, including those that were seized, and leave the state, Starr said.
Weathersbee went to eastern Kentucky, telling Vermont humane officials his animals would be cared for as part of a vegetation-management project, Starr said.
He was in Kentucky only a couple of weeks, and it was unclear how many of his animals died by the time he arrived in Franklin Furnace, Ohio, on Dec. 28, Landon said.
Weathersbee is scheduled to have a pretrial hearing in Ohio next month on 15 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 90 days in jail and fined up to $740 on each count. He also faces 16 counts of animal cruelty in West Virginia.
He has previously acknowledged that he could not afford to give the herd sufficient care, but he refused to get rid of the animals because he said his religious views prohibited him from slaughtering any of the goats.
Associated Press
ST. GEORGE, Utah — The police chief in the polygamous border town of Colorado City, Ariz., faces loss of his badge in Utah for having multiple wives.
Chief Sam Roundy and his officers also patrol nearby Hildale, Utah — just across the state line in the 10,000-person communities dominated by The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Administrative Law Judge Richard Wyss ruled that Roundy was in default because he failed to attend a Jan. 26 hearing challenging his status as a peace officer.
The Utah Division of Peace Officer Standards and Training filed a complaint against Roundy in October 2004, alleging he was practicing plural marriage in violation of Utah's constitution and state law prohibiting bigamy.
In an interview Tuesday with the Deseret Morning News, Roundy said polygamists in the town were being unfairly targeted because of their religion.
"Every cop has a religion, but religion doesn't run my job," Roundy said. "We work closely with other agencies and do our jobs. Utah is saying we don't have the confidence of the people, and it's just the opposite of what they're saying. We grew up in this culture and we're part of it. It's religious persecution going after polygamy, that's all it is."
Wyss also recommended that Utah agency revoke Roundy's peace officer certification at its next meeting, which is scheduled next week in St. George. A vote is expected to approve the recommendation, said Washington County Sheriff Kirk Smith.
Colorado City's seven-member police force, which includes five full-time and two reserve officers, is cross-certified to work in Arizona and Utah. The status of the force and whether certain officers should be decertified by Utah and Arizona for their plural lifestyles has been discussed for a couple of years.
Associated Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. — A beauty queen who shot and killed her two-timing boyfriend was acquitted of murder Wednesday after claiming she acted in self-defense.
Sharron Nicole Redmond admitted shooting her boyfriend outside the home of another woman he was dating but said she thought he was reaching for a gun. He did not have a weapon.
Redmond, 23, had faced an automatic life sentence if convicted of Kevin Shorter's 2003 slaying. Four months earlier she had been crowned Miss Savannah.
The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for a little more than nine hours over two days.
Redmond gasped and sobbed as she heard the verdict.
One of her attorneys, Michael Schiavone, said Redmond felt "like the weight of the world was off her shoulders. You have no idea what it feels like to be accused of a crime like murder, being one step from walking into the lockup for the rest of your life or walking out the back door with me."
Shorter, 25, had dated both Redmond and Rachel Hall for about three years. Both women said Redmond went to Hall's home the night of the shooting to clear up allegations that she had made harassing phone calls to Hall, and both testified that they talked peacefully.
Shorter arrived soon after Redmond and shouted angrily at her, using sexual insults.
Prosecutors argued that Redmond shot Shorter in jealous anger after, in Hall's presence, he told the beauty queen he no longer wanted her and she was good for nothing but sex.
Redmond testified that she intended the shot as a warning and said she didn't aim at Shorter. Crime scene photos showed a dent on Shorter's car where the bullet appeared to have ricocheted before hitting him in the right buttock, severing his femoral artery. Shorter died from blood loss three days later at a hospital.
Redmond said Shorter had beaten her throughout their relationship.
Associated Press
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Lawmakers in Iceland are likely to grant citizenship to mercurial chess genius Bobby Fischer, who currently sits in a Japanese cell, a member of a parliamentary committee studying the issue said Wednesday.
Gudrun Ogmundsdottir told The Associated Press that a citizenship motion probably would be approved by the nine-member committee Thursday. If it passes, it will go before Iceland's 63-member parliament, the Althingi.
"I think that parliament may approve of the citizenship as early as tomorrow," said Ogmundsdottir, a member of the opposition Alliance Party.
"Somebody would then go over to Japan with the passport, which would enable him to travel here or anywhere in the world."
Fischer, 62, is in a Japanese detention cell awaiting deportation to the United States, where he is wanted for violating economic sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing a highly publicized chess match there in 1992.
Mizuho Fukushima, leader of Japan's opposition Social Democratic Party, said senior immigration officials told her that Fischer would be allowed to go to Iceland if he is given citizenship there.
There is widespread support for Fischer in Iceland, where he played the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in a celebrated world championship match in 1972 that put the small country on the map.
Last month, Iceland's parliament voted against granting Fischer citizenship, instead offering him a special foreigners' passport and residence permit. But Japanese officials so far have declined to release Fischer.
Several Icelandic politicians indicated Wednesday that parliament was now likely to grant Fischer citizenship.
"I can't speak for the whole party, but think few if any members of Parliament are opposed to granting Fischer citizenship," said Drifa Hjartardottir, a lawmaker with the Independence Party, which governs as part of Iceland's coalition government.
"We will not stand in the way of Fischer getting citizenship and want this issue to be resolved as quickly as possible," said Ogmundur Jonasson, a lawmaker with the Left-Green opposition party. "The worst thing we can do, both for Iceland and for Fischer, is to wait any longer."
Since being taken into custody in July for allegedly trying to leave Japan on a revoked U.S. passport, Fischer has lived up to his reputation for unpredictability.
He has repeatedly denounced the U.S. deportation order as politically motivated, demanded refugee status, unilaterally renounced his U.S. citizenship and said he wants to become a German national instead. He has also applied to marry a Japanese woman who heads this country's chess association and is his longtime companion.
Einar S. Einarsson, the former CEO of Visa Iceland who is one of Fischer's most fervent supporters, said he was optimistic.
"It's been like a chess game and there's only one move left before checkmate," he said.
Fischer, who has not visited Iceland since his 1972 match, virtually disappeared from the limelight for years before the 1992 rematch. In recent years, he has emerged from silence in radio broadcasts and on his Web page to express anti-Semitic views and rail against the United States.
Associated Press
NEW YORK — If they can't march in green, hundreds of firefighters won't march at all.
In response to a fire department order prohibiting its members from wearing their customary green berets during the St. Patrick's Day Parade, a group of firefighters will watch from the sidelines Thursday — clad in their traditional holiday headgear and civilian clothes, several firefighters said Wednesday.
The group will gather along the parade route at the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to "support our brothers and sisters as they march," said Lt. Eddie Boles of the 14th Battalion in the Bronx. But they will not march without the berets.
"It was a matter of pride," Firefighter Jim McCarthy told reporters. "It's a demonstration of Irish heritage and it's one of the things we hold dear."
The fire department issued an order on March 4 declaring that only the blue dress uniform, including the official uniform cap, could be worn during the parade.
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta defended the rule Wednesday. "It's about respecting the uniform and the position you hold, both of which should not be taken for granted," he said.
An attorney for some of the firefighters, Brian O'Dwyer, said he planned to file a complaint with the state Division on Human Rights accusing the department of discrimination on the basis of religion and ethnicity.
He acknowledged the move came too late to affect this year's parade.
The tradition of the green berets dates back more than 30 years to a Bronx firehouse. In 1970, the mother-in-law of a firefighter with Engine Co. 60 knitted dozens of green berets for the firefighters on St. Patrick's Day.
In 1975, the department gave the group official parade status. They've worn their berets in every parade since.
Although there is no official organization, they count about 1,000 members, including current, former, and retired members of the battalion, Boles said. Non-Irish firefighters wear green berets as well out of loyalty to the firehouse, McCarthy said.
The parade has been a New York tradition since 1762, and controversy has surrounded it for nearly as long.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians, which organizes the event, has refused to allow lesbians and gays to march in the parade under their own banner. An alternative, all-inclusive parade in Queens was launched six years ago to include groups like the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization.
Associated Presså
NEW YORK — Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Cronkite, the wife of former CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite, has died, the newsman's assistant said Wednesday. She was 89.
She died of complications of cancer Tuesday night at the couple's Manhattan apartment, said the assistant, Julie Sukman.
Walter Cronkite met his future wife, born Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, while they were both working at radio station KCMO in Kansas City, Mo. They married in 1940, and shortly afterward she became women's editor of the Kansas City Journal-Post.
While her husband was overseas reporting for United Press during much of World War II, she worked for Hallmark, publishing a company newspaper that also was distributed to members of the armed forces, Sukman said.
At the end of the war, she joined her husband in Brussels, Belgium, and later accompanied him to Moscow, where he worked for two years as chief correspondent for UP. The couple eventually moved to New York. He joined CBS in 1950.
In his 1996 biography, "A Reporter's Life," Cronkite wrote: "I attribute the longevity of our marriage to Betsy's extraordinary keen sense of humor, which saw us over many bumps (mostly of my making), and her tolerance, even support, for the uncertain schedule and wanderings of a newsman."
In addition to her 88-year-old husband, she is survived by two daughters, Nancy and Kathy; a son, Walter III; and four grandsons.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
Posted in Backpage on Thursday, March 17, 2005 12:00 am
© Copyright 2009, North County Times - Californian, Escondido, CA | Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
