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MOURNING FRIENDS RECALL YOUNG BIKER’S LOVE OF LIFE; Train Killed Bergenfield Boy in `Freak Accident’

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, April 5, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | A01

At a most difficult hour in his grief Saturday, Bob Gruber embraced a tearful Mike Vitacco, his son’s best friend, consoling him, as he did some 100 boys and girls who had come to bid their friend goodbye.

His wife, Patricia, was at his side, and they were seeing their son for the first time since he was killed in an accident Thursday night.

Patricia Gruber, adjusting one boy’s jacket, exhorted him to “remember Bobby as he was.”

She said she was saddened at seeing her son’s body Saturday and that the family agonized over whether the casket should be open whether the children should see him like that. The youngsters, between 11 and 15 years old, from the Roy W. Brown Middle School in Bergenfield, cried inconsolably.

“I will miss all his friends that he grew up with,” the 44-year-old Bergenfield woman said. “He lived life, every minute, to the fullest. He was looking forward to the summer, to the nice weather, because he was born in June.”

Robert R. Gruber, 13, was killed Thursday in what his father called “a freak accident.” The eighth-grader was struck and killed by an NJ Transit commuter train in East Rutherford as he returned from training for a dirt-bike race.

Saturday and Sunday were for his friends, Mrs. Gruber said. The first wave of about 25 Bergenfield middle school students arrived and filled up the room at the Riewerts Memorial Home. Michael Restrepo, 11, Jerit Sciorra, 13, Anthony Christiano, 12, Michael Lopez, 11, and Danielle Wilson, 13, were there. Toula Psathas, 11, remembered sitting a table away from Bobby at lunch one day and how kind and friendly he was. They became friends.

Jen Heffernan, 15, met Bobby Gruber through a friend and hung out, listening to music, with him.

“I will miss being with him,” she said. “He was caring. If you had a problem, he would talk to you, anytime. He was fun to be with.”

Mike Vitacco said his best friend since first grade had a puckish sense of humor and loved to make people laugh. They called him Urkel after a character on a television sitcom because he wore funny, colorful clothes. Bobby Gruber would do anything for anyone, especially girls.

He loved girls.

So his parents, who had grown accustomed to hearing adults and children alike tell them what a joy it was to be around their son, consoled and were consoled by his friends, their parents, and teachers from the school on Saturday. The children had gone to the Grubers home the night before. They had sat in Bobby’s room, talked with his parents, and talked about what he meant to them. Each one left with a photograph of their friend.

A smile played across Patricia Gruber’s face as she recalled how her son first became enamored of dirt bikes and motocross racing. He watched motocross racing on television as a young boy.

“When he was 7, he said, `Mom, when can I get one? I said maybe when he turned 12. He never forgot I said that,” and asked again as soon as he turned 12, Mrs. Gruber said.

The family lives on a dead-end with a field and woods in the back. They found out that Bobby, who switched from football to basketball about a year ago, had been borrowing a dirt bike and riding it in the field in back of the house, without all the proper equipment. His mother and father decided to buy him the bike and all the right gear. Under the watchful eyes of his father, he trained, which was the way his mother wanted it.

Bobby took part in his first competitive race a week ago, and was to have competed Saturday in a motocross race in Walden, N.Y. He usually trained in Jersey City with a group from Bergenfield. But on the day he died, the group’s plans changed and they went instead to the meadowlands in East Rutherford.

They parked in the street, walked about a half-mile into the meadow, then rode alongside the raised railroad tracks. About 6 p.m., Gruber told his son it was windy and cold, that he would head back to the trucks, that the others could join him later.

He was a good distance ahead when Bobby came up, wanting to take his father to the trucks.

“Dad, let me ride you on my bike, let me take you partway,” he told his father.

“I never let him ride me on his bike. It’s a small bike and it’s a race bike. It wasn’t good for the bike,” Gruber said. He told his son to go back and join the others, that he would see him later.

Bobby, following two other bikes, would pass his father twice as he rode around practicing.
“He was doing great moves, happy as a lark,” his father said.

Gruber would not see his son alive again. The next time he saw him was in a casket at the Bergenfield funeral home.

Most of the ride alongside the railroad track was dirt, wobbly but safe, he said but at one point, to cross over a culvert on railroad property between the Hackensack River bridge and the Route 3 overpass, he would have to ride close to the tracks. The train, returning to the Hoboken station carrying no passengers, apparently sideswiped the boy.

“It was an extreme coincidence to be in that corner at that time,” Gruber said. “He ended being on top of the culvert at the time, such a brief instant that he was exposed to danger and it happened.”

When asked what they would miss most about Bobby Gruber, one of his friends said they would miss “just being with him.”

Visiting continues today from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Services will be Monday at 10 a.m. at the Teaneck United Methodist Church, with burial in George Washington Memorial Park.

Caption: PHOTO – Bobby Gruber posing proudly with his dirt bike in a family photograph.

Notes: Bergen page only

April 5, 1992

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FEDERAL LIMIT ON INMATES ASSAILED; Del Tufo Weighs Legal Challenge

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 1, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B01

New Jersey Attorney General Robert J. Del Tufo said Tuesday that he is considering challenging federal court orders that limit the number of state prisoners in some county jails.

“I would prefer not to have a federal judge telling the state what it can and cannot do,” he said.

Del Tufo said he talked Monday with U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr about a new U.S. Justice Department policy to provide legal help to states that are trying to lift court-ordered limits on prison populations.

He said he wants to review the current consent decrees restricting the number of state inmates in the Essex, Atlantic, Burlington, Monmouth, and Union county jails, with an eye toward challenging those limits.

Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune said lifting the cap on state inmates at other jails might help the Bergen County Jail because some state prisoners could be removed, but that the problem would remain with the state.

“If the state realizes it has an overcrowding problem, then it must address it at the state level, not at the expense of the county jail system,” Terhune said.

The new Justice Department policy was first put forth by Barr in a Jan. 14 speech in which he said the ability of states in recent years to manage their own prisons has been hampered by lower federal court rulings that came out of lawsuits filed by inmates.

“Many courts went far beyond what the Constitution requires in remedying purported Eighth Amendment violations,” Barr said in the speech. “Caps, in particular, have wrought havoc with the states efforts to get criminals off the street.”

But on Jan. 15, the day after Barr’s speech, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that undercut his position, said Elizabeth Alexander, deputy director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ruling, in a case originating in Boston, made reopening consent decrees easier, but put limits on how much they could be rewritten, Alexander said.

“I’m really surprised that Barr is continuing to make this argument,” she said. “In the face of the decision, I would have thought that he would stop, because it was so soundly rejected by the Supreme Court.”

The Bergen County Jail operates at an average of 235 percent of its rated capacity of 423 inmates, with its population hovering around 1,000 during the week and exceeding that on weekends. The county and state are co-defendants in a 1988 lawsuit filed by inmates who charged that their constitutional rights were being violated by conditions at the jail.

James Stabile, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said the state prison system currently runs at 135 percent capacity. Although the department removed 1,559 inmates from county jails in February, the caps in the five counties prevented the state from spreading that number out, he said.

For instance, the department removed 348 prisoners from the Essex County Jail, one of the jails under consent decrees, but only 72 inmates from Bergen County. The number could have been divided more evenly among the counties if the state could be flexible with the cap, Stabile said.

April 1, 1992

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FIVE INJURED WHEN DRIVER CRASHES CAR INTO TREE

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 29, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | A05

Authorities are trying to determine what caused a 20-year-old borough man to lose control of a car he was driving and crash into a tree, injuring himself and his four passengers, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said Saturday.

Doug Brino of 702 Shawnee Drive, the driver, was being treated for unspecified injuries Saturday at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. A 16-year-old girl sitting behind him and a 17-year-old girl next to her were also being treated at the hospital, Fahy said.

The front-seat passenger, a 15-year-old girl, and Brian Matos of 1173 Valley Road, Wayne, the owner of the car, were taken to University Hospital in Newark by helicopter.

A University Hospital spokeswoman said Matos was released Saturday but declined to release information on his companion because of her age.

A Valley Hospital supervisor said Brino and one girl were treated and released, but that the other girl was admitted in serious condition. She declined to say which girl it was.

The crash occurred about 9:40 p.m. Friday on a darkened bend of McCoy Road, Fahy said.

Fahy said none of the car occupants wore their seat belts and that investigators found a half-empty bottle of vodka underneath the front seat of the car. No charges had been filed in the case.

March 29, 1992

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1 OF 2 MEN HIT BY TRAIN DIES FROM HIS INJURIES

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, March 27, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B03

A 23-year-old borough man struck by a commuter train as he and a friend walked along the tracks has died, authorities said.

Cecilio Gonzalez of Wyckoff Avenue died at 1:54 a.m. Thursday, about seven hours after the accident, said Anne Marie Loughran, a Hackensack Medical Center spokeswoman.

Andre Barahona, 41, of Franklin Turnpike, whose left arm was broken when he also was hit by the NJ Transit train, was improving Thursday and was upgraded from critical to stable condition, said a spokesman for University Hospital in Newark.

Barahona was flown to the hospital by helicopter after the accident at 6:41 p.m. Wednesday about 300 yards north of the Wyckoff Avenue railroad overpass.

The men may have been drinking, and one was apparently listening to a radio because a headset was found at the scene, Waldwick Police Sgt. Brian Cotter said.

“According to the engineer, he sounded his horn but they didn’t move from the track,” Cotter said. “There was a bottle of vodka found embedded in the front of the train. It was in a plastic bag, attached to the front of the engine.”

An autopsy, which would determine whether Gonzalez was drinking, is pending, Cotter said.

One of the men was walking between the rails and the other was walking outside the rails when they were struck by the train, Cotter said. One of the victims told rescuers they were returning home from work, Cotter added.

The train was carrying 13 passengers and traveling about 40 mph at the time of the accident, said NJ Transit spokeswoman Kathleen Donohue. Waldwick was the final stop for the train, which left Hoboken with about 300 passengers, she said.

March 27, 1992

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SHE LOSES CASH, STEREO TO CON MEN

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, March 26, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B03

Two men conned a 32-year-old Paterson woman out of $300 and stole her car stereo Tuesday after persuading her to give them the money in exchange for a share in lottery winnings, police said.

The woman was shaken but not injured, police Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley said. He gave this account from a report written by Patrolman Ronald Schaarschmidt:

The scam occurred between noon and 12:45 p.m. Tuesday. One man approached the woman as she stood at a phone booth on Engle Street and asked for directions to a church. A second man then walked up and they talked.

“The first man indicated that the second male had won money from the New York State lottery, a large sum of money,” Tinsley said. “He told her that the second male would give her part of that money if she would give him some money to hold as trust.”

Tinsley said it was unclear how much money the man said he won or how much he said he would give the woman. She drove the men to the Midlantic Bank at 1 Engle St. in her car, cashed a $300 personal check, and gave the money to the supposed lottery winner.

They asked her to drive up Engle Street to a friend’s house. When she and one of the men got out of the car to go to the apartment, he ran. When she returned to her car, the other man had removed the stereo and fled, Tinsley said.

March 26, 1992

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POLICE MUST USE CARE WITH ELDERLY

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, March 25, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 3 Star | NORTHWEST BERGEN YOUR TOWN RECORD | 12

A patrol officer stopped an 80-year-old woman driving 5 mph on the highway, then wondered what to do when she told him she was driving so slowly because she was hungry and needed to find a place to get a slice of pizza.

“What is the captain going to say? What is the judge going to say?” John Pescatore, director of the Bergen County Highway Safety Office, said in recalling an incident early in his 25 years as a law-enforcement officer.

To avoid citing the woman for driving too slowly, then having to answer to his captain or a judge, Pescatore said he would have delivered pizza to the woman’s house every day of his career.

“Our primary responsibility is no longer just enforcing the law, but to assist the people in our community to live a safer life,” he said.

Pescatore spoke about the incident to about 55 police officers attending a training program last week on older-adult behavior.

The half-day session, sponsored by the northern New Jersey chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association and Hackensack Medical Center’s Geriatric Assessment Program, looked at ways police should handle older adults, who appear to be committing crimes but may in fact be confused or suffering dementia.

Police officers often notice confusion and dementia in an older adult before family members do, Janet Reynolds of the Geriatric Assessment Program said. The center is an outpatient program for families and other health-care professionals on how to keep older adults healthy and independent.

“There are many reasons why an older adult can be confused,” Reynolds said. “They include everything from Alzheimer’s disease, to reaction to medication, to depression from being alone and isolated.”

Bergen County was selected as the first place to hold the police training seminar, because it has the state’s largest population of adults over 60 years old about 174,000 said Marcia F. Mohl, executive director of the Northern New Jersey Alzheimer’s Association. The chance that a person will get Alzheimer’s, a progressive degenerative brain disease that often results in irreversible dementia, increases with age.

It also often results in a loss of memory, erratic driving, fear, and confusion. About 150,000 New Jersey residents have Alzheimer’s, Mohl said.

Because victims of Alzheimer’s might sometime lash out in frustration at their loved ones, Englewood Police Detective Barry Johnson pointed out that the state’s new Domestic Violence Prevention Act mandates police make an arrest when they see evidence of abuse.

Reynolds of the Geriatric Assessment Program advised that it may be better to leave the person in that situation because, often, they would have forgotten what they did before police arrived at the scene. Arresting them might only increase their confusion, she said. But officers told her the mandate of the law does not leave them room for discretion.

Both Rochelle Park Police Chief William Betten and Hackensack Sgt. John Elefante said the seminar was useful, if only to amplify the care officers need to use in certain situations.

Rochelle Park, with a nursing home and a huge residential development for the elderly, has Bergen County’s largest percentage of adults over 60, Betten said. “Police, sometimes, are the only friends and contact some elderly people who live alone have,” he said.

March 25, 1992

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DECAL PROGRAM TO FIGHT AUTO THEFTS

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, March 25, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | SOUTH CENTRAL BERGEN YOUR TOWN RECORD |
4

Police are asking residents to help them fight auto theft by registering their cars with the department and authorizing police to stop and search the cars if they see them on the road during the middle of the night.

Participants in the Combat Auto Theft program, which is voluntary and free, sign a consent form saying they do not drive their cars between 1 and 5 a.m., and that they authorize any law enforcement officer to stop and check if it is seen on the road during those hours, said Lt. Paul Romaine.

Residents receive a reflective yellow sticker bearing the letters CAT that they put in the rear, left-side car window.

Police have to have probable cause to stop a car and search it, Romaine said. The sticker is numbered and has information on the car’s owner.

The program is part of a statewide attempt to combat auto theft, Romaine said. “It’s a good program,” he said. “It protects the car owner.”

Interested residents have to register in person at the city’s police headquarters at 205 State St. between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. They must provide a valid New Jersey driver’s license and registration for the car. Participants can withdraw from the program at any time by writing the department and removing the sticker from their car windows.

For additional information call Romaine in the Hackensack Police Crime Prevention Bureau at 646-7725 or 646-7726.

Caption: PHOTO of Hackensack Police auto theft decal.

March 25, 1992

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BUCHANAN VISITS NIXON IN N.J.; Sees Former Boss in Woodcliff Lake

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 22, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | A03

Descending a marble staircase into the galleria of the Perillo Tours Plaza in Woodcliff Lake on Saturday, former President Richard M. Nixon joked that Patrick Buchanan had insisted on standing on the right when the two walked into a room filled with reporters.

Although Nixon favors President Bush over Buchanan, who is presenting himself as the true conservative in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, the personal warmth between the two was evident as they stood side by side.

“I appreciated the opportunity to see Pat Buchanan, particularly to see Shelly again after all these years,” Nixon said of Buchanan’s wife. The former president spoke little during the photo opportunity. “We had good conversations with regard to the campaign to date, and what I believe we should do in the future,” Nixon said.

Although Nixon said he and his his onetime speech writer disagree on some issues, he had a good word for Buchanan.

“There’s only one thing in politics that is worse than being wrong, and that’s to be dull. Pat Buchanan is never dull,” he said.

Nixon, who lives in Park Ridge and has offices in Woodcliff Lake, then handed Buchanan a 5-ruble coin from the former Soviet Union.

Buchanan characterized his one-hour, closed-door visit with Nixon as “delightful, pleasant, and constructive.”

Buchanan said Nixon cautioned that if something was not done to help the former Soviet republics, the resulting economic chaos might give rise to new despots.

Buchanan said Nixon advised him to direct “part of my fire” toward Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and to emphasize Clinton’s lack of foreign policy and national security experience.

“I agree with President Nixon. I don’t think a Clinton administration with a Democratic Congress would be good for America,” Buchanan said.

Buchanan vowed to remain in the race, at least through the June 2 primaries in New Jersey and California.

Although the photo opportunity was attended primarily by reporters, Buchanan supporters appeared at the Nixon offices.

Diane Bollerman, who waited with her son Jeff, 17, almost two hours for Buchanan, was rewarded when he spotted her, walked over, and clasped her hands in a firm shake.

“I’m big supporter of yours. We are hoping that you do well,” she told Buchanan.

March 22, 1992

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MAHWAH COP SHOOTS SUSPECT WHO HELD RIFLE

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 22, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | A01

A Mahwah police officer on Saturday shot and critically injured a 29-year-old man whose father had reported was drunk and firing shots in the basement of their home, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.

Police Officer Richard Kikkert shot Stephen Michael Megles of 83 Eastview Ave. after Megles pointed a .22-caliber rifle at the officer, Fahy said.

“The bullet hit him [Megles] in the left arm in the shoulder area, then traveled into the ribs, and into the abdomen area,” Fahy said.

Megles was taken in a helicopter to University Hospital in Newark, where he was listed in critical condition. Megles, a welder, was recently laid off and was depressed, his father told authorities.

Megles was charged with attempted murder of a police officer, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and illegal possession of a weapon.

The incident began about 1:10 p.m., when Stephen Megles Sr. called police.

Fahy said that when four officers arrived at the house a few minutes later, they heard loud music accompanied by the sound of gunshots coming from the basement.

Kikkert and police Lt. Thomas Brennan entered the house and tried unsuccessfully to persuade the younger Megles into giving up his gun, Fahy said.

“At a point in time, Officer Kikkert was on the landing at the top of the stairs, trying to get the defendant to come upstairs and put his gun down,” Fahy said.

Megles raised his gun to shoot, and the officer fired his 9mm pistol once, hitting Megles, Fahy said.

In the basement, the officers found an empty vodka bottle and evidence that Megles fired dozens of shots in the room, Fahy said.

The younger Megles was known to Mahwah police, but had not been convicted of a serious crime, Fahy said. He added that the father told police his son had fired shots in the house, of which they were the only occupants, several times before.

Kikkert has been with the Mahwah Police Department for four years. Before that, he spent 12 years with the Carlstadt Police Department. He had never fired his weapon on duty while on the Mahwah force, Police Chief Samuel Alderisio said.

Kikkert, 39, was scheduled to be off work the next four days. He will be on an additional four-day medical leave, after which he will undergo medical and psychological evaluation to see if he is fit for duty, Alderisio said. He would first be assigned to desk duty if he is found to be fit, the chief added.

The Megleses have an unlisted telephone number and could not be reached for comment. A relative living nearby declined comment.

March 22, 1992

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2 HAWTHORNE TEENS STILL IN HOSPITAL INJURED IN WEATHER-RELATED CRASH

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen and Gregory Beals, Record Staff Writers | Wednesday, March 18, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 4 Star | NEWS | B03

Two Hawthorne teenagers remained hospitalized from injuries in what police say was a weather-related, head-on collision in the village last week.

Edward Mullins III, 17, the driver of one of the cars, was in fair condition at Hackensack Medical Center on Tuesday, a spokeswoman said.

His passenger and classmate at Hawthorne High School, Corinne Dockray, 14, was in stable condition in the surgical intensive care unit with head injuries at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, a spokesman said. A helicopter took Dockray to the hospital after the accident on March 11, police said.

Two of Mullins other passengers, and the driver of the other car and her passenger, suffered minor injuries. Treated at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood and released were Patrick Murphy, 17, and Allison Taylor, 14, both of whom were riding in Mullins car; Judith M. De Boer, 42, the driver of the other car; and Kirk De Boer, whose age and relationship to Judith De Boer were unavailable.

Murphy and Mullins have been friends since the age of 7, when they began playing football together, said Theresa Murphy, mother of Patrick Murphy. Both are members of the Hawthorne High School football team. Mullins is a halfback, Murphy an outside linebacker.

Murphy suffered a few abrasions to the face and required a few stiches, his mother said, adding that he was in shock after the accident and was deeply concerned about Mullins.

“It was very upsetting,” said Theresa Murphy, a 17-year Hawthorne resident. “He didn’t go to school for two days. He’s been at his buddy’s all the time.”

Mullins father, Edward Mullins, said: “My family, my friends, and my faith have kept me going. We are very, very positive right now.”

Students at Hawthorne High School have been kept advised of the condition of their injured classmates. One student said announcements have been made over the public address system.

Mullins had been traveling eastbound on Godwin Avenue about 6:45 p.m. last Wednesday when his car moved into the path of oncoming traffic and struck De Boer’s car at a bend in the road, according to the police report.

Ridgewood Police Capt. Louis Mader on Tuesday attributed the accident to the weather, saying it had snowed and there was a patch of ice in the roadway where the accident occurred.

Richard Sperito, the assistant superintendent of schools in Hawthorne, said: “Unfortunately, I think a lot of times when this happens we say, `Oh, they were speeding, or `Oh, they were drinking. But that was not the case here. It could have happened to you or me.”

Correction: Allison Taylor, one of the six Hawthorne residents injured last week in an accident in Ridgewood, remained in the hospital Friday and was in good condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. A story in Wednesday’s editions said she had been released from the hospital. Also, the name of one of the injured was misspelled. She is Corin Dockray. (PUBLISHED, SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1992, PAGE a02.)

March 18, 1992

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