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Adjusting to lifeoutside of prison challenges CurtisPhysics student glad to be homeafter 1982 New Jersey murderKINGSTON, Ont. (CP) — Seven years gazing at distant galaxies through the bars of a New Jersey prison isn’t why a Queen’s University student wants to become an astrophysicist.In fact, he could barely see the night sky because of the glare of the floodlights that illuminated the walls of Bordentown prison.Bruce Curtis, 25, said he first considered studying astrophysics when he was a young boy growing up in the country and learning about the world around him on long walks with his father along the shore of the Bay of Fundy.Curtis appeared shy as he talked to reporters Friday at the office of his lawyer. Queen's University Prof. Jennifer Hatfield-Lyon.'If one accepts that the act I committed is in fact a condition for punishment, then I don’t feel I was wrongly imprisoned.’—Former convict ^^^^^BRUCECURTJSHe has just finished his first week of classes at Queen’s, where he is taking physics, chemistry, biology, algebra and calculus while free on day parole from a nearby halfway house.Curtis hopes to ease quietly into university life after several years of notoriety for his part in the shooting death of a friend’s parents in Loch Arbour, N.J., in 1982.In the spring of that year, Curtis, then 17. graduated as a straight A student from the private Kings-Edgehill School in Windsor, N.S.After graduation he went to the New Jersey home of school chum, Scott Franz. It was there that Franz became involved in a fight with his stepfather, Alfred Podgis, which ended with Franz shooting and killing the man in an upstairs bedroom.Curtis, who was downstairs at the time, tried to flee at the sound of gunfire but encountered Franz’s mother, Rosemary Podgis, whom he shot with a hunting rifle he was carrying.Franz was sentenced to 20 years in prison for first-degree murder.Curtis maintained that the gun that killed Mrs. Podgis was discharged accidentally as he ran from the house. But a New Jersey court sentenced him to 20 years in prison, with no chance for parole for 10 years.Curtis said his biggest mistake might have been helping Franz clean up the blood-spattered house and dumping the bodies in Pennsylvania instead of calling police.After his trial Curtis was sent to Bordentown, and was released under terms of a Canada-U.S. treaty last May to serve the rest of his sentence in Canada.While he was in prison he took an introductory philosophy course, an English course and six psychology courses, so that when he arrived at Queen’s he was recognized as an upper-year psychology student.However, he chose to start as a first-year physics student although he is uncertain whether he’ll follow a career in astrophysics.CP wirephotoCAMPUS: Bruce Curtis walks around Queen’s University.“The reason I wanted to become an astrophysicist since I was maybe 12 years old is that there is a certain esthetic quality to it. I find it very beautiful — the complexity of the problem and and how it all fits together. It’s very organized, the way the physical laws interact and create the universe.’’Asked to compare the Canadian and American prison system, he said: “I think the Canadian prison system is much more into rehabilitation; it’smuch more concerned about the welfare of the inmates.”_________Curtis says he spent much of his days at Bordentown in its education department, tutoring prisoners in basic literacy, helping in orientation for new prisoners, interviewing them on their life expectations, and running a computer system.Asked whether he felt his imprisonment was justified, he said: If one accepts that the act I committed is in fact a condition for punishment, then I don’t feel I was wrongly imprisoned.”
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