North Adams Transcript (Newspaper) - October 6, 1975, North Adams, Massachusetts NORTH ADAMS ADAMS WILLIAMSTOWN MASSACHUSETTS MONDAY OCTOBER 6 1975 24 PAGES CENTS Pine Cobble crash kills sailplane pilot Full house Spectators line Main Street yesterday as the 20th annual Fall Foliage Festival parade gets into gear Officials said the crowd was the largest ever outstripping last year's record Story page 13 Trabold Both sides deny confessed SAN FRANCISCO AP Attorneys for both sides In the Patricia Hearst case denied published reports today that the heiress has confessed to several crimes including a fatal bank jobbery and has agreed to turn state's evidence A story in today's editions of the New York Post familiar with the interviews as saying Miss Hearst had confessed during talks with appointed psychiatrists seeking to determine whether she is mentally competent The Post said Miss Hearst identified several persons who harbored her as a fugitive and agreed to testify against her terrorist comrades in return for im- or special treatment The report said Miss Hearst 21 decided to cooperate with authorities after her attorney F Lee Bailey told her it was the only way to avoid a long prison term This is absolutely not said Albert Johnson a partner of Bailey's when informed of the Post story I've been the only attorney with her for the past week and she has not confessed to anything She couldn't make a decision like that even if she wanted to because of the state she's in U.S Attorney James L Browning personally in charge of the Hearst case termed the report a wild and said she has not offered to turn state's delivered to media in three California cities during the weekend The missive promises future proof that don't know anything any statement that she's to the I'm not of cooperation that she's extending of- fering to the have ben no plea discussions The Post story said that among the crimes Miss Hearst confessed to was the 21 1975 robbery in which a woman customer was killed Under California law anyone convicted of taking part in such a bery could be found guilty of murder The newspaper said its sources did not elaborate on Miss Hearst's role in that robbery and did not enumerate other crimes Authorities meanwhile were studying a communique signed Liberation Army and proclaiming that the SLA lives which urged terrorists to go on a kidnaping spree among the rich to raise bail money for their imprisoned comrades The FBI said there is no way to im- mediately determine the authenticity of the communique similar in format to past messages from the SLA and Emily Harris either diad or in custody A source close to said Sunday It is possible that some members of the SLA may be unknown and still at large Six SLA members including leader Donald were killed in a Los Angeles Shootout with police in May 1974 Members Russell Little and Joseph Remiro were convicted earlier this year of the murder of Oakland School Supt Marcus Foster But the source said about 28 SLA code names had been found in one early hideout and only 11 of the have been accounted for Six are dead Two are in prison Then there's Patly and Emily and Miss Hearst who said in a court that she was tortured and brainwashed into joining the SLA after members of the group kidnaped her on Feb 4 1974 is being held without bail awaiting trial on a San Francisco bank robbery charge Pacific air caused wet summer WASHINGTON APJ if your golfing and picnics were often rained out last summer you had lots of company The summer of 75 was a wet one for most Americans because of an abnormally strong flow of air from the Pacific Ocean across the northern United States and southern Canada And thanks to Hurricane Eloise fall of 75 already is shaping up as a wet one for the northeast United States Weather Service meteorologists say the strong westerly air flow last summer sent more than the usual number of storm systems tramping from Oregon and Washington across the border states and the Great Lake States and into Pennsylvania New York and southern New England Rainfall also was higher than normal through the Southeast and southern plains states South Carolina Georgia Mississippi Louisiana Texas Oklahoma Arkansas Missouri Kansas and eastern Colorado Only In scattered regions was summer rainfall substantially below normal The northern Maine Vermont and New Hampshire were drier than normal as were narrow strips across southern Virginia and northern North Carolina into central Tennessee and from southeastern Wyoming through central Nebraska into northwestern Missouri In the Southwest normally sparse precipitation was slimmer than usual particularly in Arizona Overall however areas of low and normal precipitation were smaller than areas of heavy rainfall Storms spawned by Hurricane Eloise along the mid-Atlantic seaboard Sept 27 dumped up to 14 inches of rain in some areas Data from the Weather Service's office of hydrology pinpoints the highest Eloise rainfall of 14 inches in the WILLIAMSTOWN sailplane crash yesterday on Pine Cobble took the life of a New York man The pilot was identified as Roger Conrad Halverson of a research biologist at the State University of New York at Albany A Federal Aviation Administration investigator will meet with Civil Air Patrol officials today to try to determine the cause of the accident said George Sarrouf flight operations manager for the patrol The helicopter that brought Gov Michael S Dukakis to the Fall Foliage Festival parade aided the search and spotted the craft among the trees Hikers who saw the crash from the Pine Cobble summit first reported it to Williamstown police at p.m police aid A subsequent account from other hikers at p.m confirmed the report and gave detailed information about the area of the crash police said I heard a screaming whistle It happened very fast I only saw it a second and it disappeared over the Daniel of Williamstown said About a second later I heard what sounded like a he said He said he saw the glider sort of diving sideways behind Eph Point The Lobdell boy was resting on the summit with his parents Brian and Joanne Lobdell when the sailplane crashed sometime after p.m he other hikers Stuart Olson of and Charles of Williamstown said The directions were given lo two Ml Greylock Regional High School students who participated in the search Mr Thompson said The hikers confirmed reports of the crash to police Mr Thompson said Mark Malloy 15 of Williamstown was the first searcher lo see the wreckage he said All of a sudden I saw something red I ran up lo il The guy was just hanging there by his safely strap half in the he said Michael 15 other student said the sailplane was found Pine Cobble trail Searchers hiked the last mile and one- half to two miles to the crash site after the terrain became too rough for their vehicles Mr Malloy said Members of Williamstown police and volunteer fire and the Hopkins Ambulance Service staff in the search Mr Thompson said The pilot died instantly according to James J Macek associate medical examiner Causes of death were multiple tures of both upper legs traumatic amputation of both lower legs a com- pound skull fracture fractures of both arms and a crushed chest Dr Macek said Mr Halverson left Harriman Airport in a new sailplane owned by him according to Robert D Burchard co-owner of Berkshire Inc He said Mr Halverson had been soaring for about 30 months Mr Halverson was born in Troy son of Emily Benedict and the late Alfred H HAlverson He graduated from the Berkshire School in and Institute and did graduate work at Syracuse University and the University of California He was an Army veteran of the nam war Surviving arc his mother of Galway and a brother Lee B Halvcrson of Mechanicville Funeral arrangements arc in the charge of Hopkins Funeral Home The sailplane accident was the second of the weekend according to Edward Stanton watch supervisor at the FAA Dukakis makes pledge Highway funds to be diverted from Boston fir ra lip Town Com mil By PATRICIA A FRANCIS fund money will be from construction of ex- in the Boston areas to repair and construction of roads in central and western Massachusetts says Gov Dukakis Calling construction of a mile expressways a wasle of Gov yesterday pledged there Inside 10 11 A 21 j M 20 4 24 22 1 0 5 will be no new expressway construction as long as I am governor He did say though that highway fund money will be used in the metropolitan area for public transportation story page 24 The governor was during a visit to northern Berkshire He attended the Fall Foliage Festival parade in North Adams then met with President James T Amsler of North Adams State College before coming to the Adams Berkshire Inn last evening for a reception sponsored by the Berkshire County Democratic Committee About 200 mainly from central and northern Berkshire com- the buffet Prior to the the governor held an informal press conference II was there he told of his for highway funds He repeated the pledge during the brief speech he gave at the reception The financial condition very much on the governor's mind as he told the Democrats he hopes lo have a budget by the end of the month He urged support for legislators pling with the budget Once the budget is set by the legislature the governor said We can get on with the business we were elected to do He toid the group the slate government was a shambles when he took office nine months ago and said there Is a long way to go in straightening things out I'm more optimistic now than I was In he said We can do it Gov he hoped soon to begin efforts turn the economy around in the state saying it will be accomplished through economic growth and development coupled with con- sideration for the environmental quality that makes the stale great There's no reason we can't have he said James L Rowley chairman of the flight service station at Bradley In- Airport In the first mishap a student pilot practicing landings southeast of Harriman Airport after landing The accident took place at The airplane slid sideways and part of the fuselage was bent bul no injuries were reported Mr Stanlon said The name was listed as Ron Heltinger and the owner's name as Bob Burchard Mr Burchard a co-owner of Berkshire Inc said the student pilot hit a bale of hay in a landing on Bernard's farm at the base of Notch Rd Mother her son up craff deliberately NORTH ADAMS Emily Halverson watched her son Roger die yesterday doing something he loved She was at Harriman Airport when her son's orange and yellow sailplane vanished inlo the fall foliage of Pine Cobble Mountain She's convinced it was a suicide Mrs Halverson has given permission to express that due to the events in the last week that it was not anything but an emotional condition and a said Robert D owner of Berkshire Sail Flights Inc There'll be a complete investigation by the FAA Federal Aviation Ad- ministration to determine the cause of the accident But there's no question in our mind that it he told The Transcript last Roger was described mother as fih from over to the she said lafer And several weeks hc had been wound up emotionally His father a former died two years ago Perhaps a flight In his brand-new Switzer 126 single sealer sailplane would case the tension that was building up within himself Mrs Halverson thought He looked very relaxed when 1 saw him He looked as though he was going to go out and enjoy Mr Burchard recalled Roger had done all of his training at Berkshire Sail Flights Inc and was extremely quick to adapt to he said He left for his last flight at about p.m Within an hour Roger soared to his death becoming the first area sail plane fatality that North Adams Civil Air Patrol authorities can recall He must have been doing over 200 miles an hour when he hit the ground he took a nose Mr Burchard said The plane was completely torn apart It severed one tree that was a good six inches in diameter cut it right he said Roger's body was found in the wreckage Mr Burchard said he hoped that the fatality would not cast a cloud over the ty -ol soaring It is common for than 400 pounds o become entangled In tree tops with very little damage he said Roger never found himself in life according to his mother But soaring was something he really loved one of the tew things he loved she said So he decided to do it in a manner that was something he enjoyed in his last moments his mother watched him drive it into the Mr Burchard said Adams Democratic Town Committee was master of ceremonies for the reception He introduced a number of local and area Democrats among them John Barrett HI who introduced the governor Others were Selectman Earl F Kellcy Probation officer Mark Trollier State Rep Anthony P McBride Housing authority executive director Paul Kegresse Welfare office director Anna Cluk and American Legion Commander allof Adams Also introduced were Frances Buckley and Anthony T Abuisi Jr of the North Adams City Democratic Committee and County Treasurer Matthew Collins The weather Windy tonight low in 30s Cloudy tomorrow high 60 Starting young Two-year-old Bruce Pearson of Goldsboro is a picture of concentration top as he prepares for takeoff on water skis AP Wirephoto
