Yuma Daily Sun, The (Newspaper) - January 31, 1971, Yuma, Arizona COMP MICKO PHOTO CO DAVID HILL OLD MENSFIELD RD QM Ford Guilty of Figueroa Murder GUILTY Richard M Ford and his wife talk during a recess Friday as his murder trial entered its final day Mrs Ford who appeared shaken during most of the trial broke down when the guilty verdict was read at Saturday Sun Staff Photo By NEIL JOHNSON The Yuma Daily Sun Richard M Ford 25 is guilty of the first degree murder of Gayla Ruth and a life sentence in the Arizona State Prison is recommended This was the verdict handed down at Saturday after an four man jury deliberated nearly seven hours following a week of testimony Ford attired in a Marine Corps uniform as he was all during the trial received the verdict without emotion He sat quietly as his wife sobbed in the courtroom Only a handful of tors Ford's family the jury attorneys and other court of- heard the verdict read to Superior Court Judge liam W Nabours After the jury was dismissed and court adjourned Ford em- braced his sobbing wife for a few moments before being led back to the Yuma County Jail by Sheriffs Crow Wednesday at 9 was set as a date to set a court session for the imposition of sentence The verdict ended a thon day in dourt that saw the defense with attorney lan Heilman present its case Nearly three hours of closing arguments and instructions followed before the jury began deliberation about p.m Court-appointed defense at- torney Heilman rested the de- fense when the court vened at p.m following the lunch recess County Attorney Ron Jones recalled Betty Colburn one of the persons who attended the party and resided at the tion of the party that Gayla r igueroa attended the night of her death The quantity and type of liquor consumed persons at the party and what went on were brought out again Did Gayle Figueroa appear asked Jones replied Miss Colburn Jones recalled Glendora Finley one of three girls to arrive at the party with Mrs Figueroa Similar questioning as before about the party and people attending took place After the testimony the jury was excused at 2 p.m for a motion by Heilman I the motion of insufficient evidence linking the defendant to it the murder and that she died of a human Heilman appealed to Judge Nabours Heilman continued on for 10 minutes pointing out dis- in the amount of beer consumed by Mrs by logist Dr Musgrave that it was impossible to determine if the victim was unconscious before death and the ny of the Canadian policeman who picked up Ford Certainly there is cient added torney as he Judge Nabours with a case record law book Judge Nabours led the book for three minutes as the courtroom became lent Defendant Ford glanced around the room and then stared at the desk He didn't speak and didn't say a word during the entire trial as he never took the stand The judge then overruled the motion At p.m court adjourned as the attorneys and judge conferred over instructions in chambers When court reconvened at p.m three hours and 20 minutes of closing arguments began Since it is up to the state to prove guilt beyond the able shadow of doubt the country attorney opens the ar- yields to the defense attorney and then has the final argument Jones went over the mony degrees of murder ments of the crime of murder it is a circum- stantial case but seldom is there a witness in a case of this Jones told the jury The state makes no inference between direct and circum- stantial evidence I the state has proved evidence ters of great significance During his speech Jones pointed out Ford's flight was not a presumption of guilt but a circumstance of the case The prosecutor added He in- vented an alibi for himself that has been disapproved I submit something very horrible was in Ford's car and there is evidence of it in his he finalized to the jury When it was Heilman's turn he ripped at the state's ease for Turn to page 2 please Hours on Moon Planned CAPE KENNEDY Fla AP Apollo 14 astronauts Alan B Shepard Jr and Edgar D Mitchell plan to spend 33 hours 30 minutes on the moon with the landing scheduled for EST Friday Feb 6 conduct on the surface listing ing the they are to set up a Look for Ag Today's Yuma Daily Sun has a bonus inside in the form of a section on culture in Yuma County Kay Kestner graces the front page displaying one of Yuma's citrus crops los There is a section on the Parker area describing the Northern Yuma County farms and attractions Elsewhere in the section Yuma's 4-H program the 1970 fiscal year farm gross of million the alfalfa yield and wind machines are described science station collect soil samples and deploy a grenade launcher After they have left the moon ground radio signals will launch four grenades from the launcher Their explosive im- pacts will be recorded on geo- imd will tell scientists about the characteristics of the lunar crust down to a depth of about feet The second excursion will be devoted to a field ogy trip in which Shepard and Mitchell are to visit several craters to make gas and analyses of types of soil and collect a large ety of rocks To carry their tools and the samples they gather the astronauts will pull a two-wheel equipment cart SUN and ARIZONA SENTINEL SUN Issue Year SENTINEL 271 st Issue Year Yuma Arizona Sun Jan 31 1971 Apollo 14 Launching P.M Yuma Time Inside Sun Real Fla Facto and figures of the Apollo 14 Launch p.m EST Sunday Yuma Time Navy Alan B Shepard Jr 47 Navy Cmdr Edgar D Mitchell 40 Air Force Maj Stuart A Roosa 37 Man's third moon landing Shepard and Mitchell are to attempt a landing in the rugged highlands of fra Mauro on the eastern edge of the Ocean of Storms Here they are to deploy a science station and hopefully find rocks dating 4.6 billion years to the origin of the moon Length of time on the hours including hours outside on two excursions Names of the Command ship Kitty Hawk lunar module An tares Flight 9 days 41 minutes three-stage Saturn 5 which with Apollo e craft feet tail The most powerful rocket with a first stage thrust of 7 9 million pounds of Saturn million command ship million module million operations in- recovery operations package lion Blockade on BERLIN AP A virtual East German land blockade of Berlin went into its fourth day Saturday with Chancellor Willy Brandt defiantly ing West Berlin's ties to West Germany President Gustav mann one of the West German political figures to whose pre- sence the Communists ed bringing on the autobahn harassment decided to stay an extra day j m ACCIDENT SCENE Ambulance personnel and Yuma Police aid three injured in car 22 903 P persons Moving a traffic accident at 1st Street and Gila MCAS at p.m Saturday The driver Cecilia Gonzales 15 ed an r 229 Avenue and passengers Lana Woodahl still the cu ar LEMON CROP Citrus Men Keep Nervous Eyes On Trees for Full Frost Damage END OF THE ROAD Yuma Jaycees left to right Bear Cowart Jon Weeks exchange k to promote the upcoming Yuma Jaycee Pat McLoud and Wahl approach victim Buddy Rodeo Feb 13th and 14th Tickets are available for the Dean foreground during Saturday's staged shoot-out rodeo from any JC member or from the ticket at the Shopping Center The mock gun fire booth in the Shopping Center By DON O'NEILL Sun Business Editor The full extent of the age to Yuma's citrus won't be known until the blossoms start forming in the spring Then the actual damage to the wood will be known and an estimate of what next season's crop will or won't be can be made The big fruit damage was to Valencias Lemons escaped but some growers expressed the belief that year's iemon crop may be halved as a result of wood damage No one has a dollars and cents figure This is the concensus of growers and government concerned with the crop Bud Stammer Arizona field man for the Valencia Orange Administrative Committee in Phoenix reported that 76 per cent of this year's Valencia crop will be abandoned or go to Sun Staff Photo Harvesting had barely ten under way when the freeze hit he said There was a lot of of leaf damage but in my swing down through there 1 could find no real split wood ever we'll have to wait until growth starts again to see how much twig there is Yuma including the region has about acres of oranges with about producing he noted Russ Braman Yuma grower and federal crop insurance representative said that less than 50 per cent of the orange and exotic crop was covered Exotics include gerines and their related ties The payout on citrus age to those covered by in- to Braman said But that only covers a small proportion of the actual age Some estimates of as high as and million have been made Braman said most of the in- sured acreage is in small blocks of 10 acres He said that less than five per cent of the grapefruit acreage is covered and little of the lemons He said there were probably three or four boxes of lemons left on each tree Yuma's second biggest citrus crop lemons came out of the January freeze looking very good according to reports from growers So also did grapefruit We're shipping more fruit this season right now in fact than wo ever have before one major reported Lemons came out good be- cause about 75 per cent of the crop was harvested before the freeze struck according to Art Allen of the Lemon trative Committee field Los Angeles He has just finished an inspection of the Yuma area Much of what was left would have gone to products Allen noted Actually the lemon production for this season was curtailed by about eight per cent that is the overall crop The good fruit was off the trees Yuma has acres of bearing lemon trees and of a total of acres The big question now is what will happen to next year's hopes in the lemon groves Allen said there has been leaf damage much tion The forthcoming crop will be he said It will be lighter but how much is the question He said it will be late February or early March before the answer will be found when the trees blossom Then it can be mined how much wood age there is
