ESCAPED KILLER CHARGED IN HOLDUPS; Pair of Businesses were Robbed

Byline: By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, January 24, 1992

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

A convicted killer who escaped from a Connecticut prison and was recaptured in Paramus over the weekend was charged Thursday with two armed robberies in Rutherford and Montvale, authorities said.

Police linked Frank Vandever to the Jan. 7 robberies of a Rutherford jewelry store and a Montvale 7 Eleven after Vandever was captured at Garden State Plaza on Saturday, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.

Ronald Rutan, who also escaped from the Connecticut prison and was recaptured last week, was also charged Thursday in the holdups, Fahy said.

Vandever and Rutan are also suspects in the robbery of a 7 Eleven in Waldwick on Jan. 9, the prosecutor said.

Connecticut authorities on Thursday charged Vandever, 37, and Rutan, 34, with breaking out of the Somers Correctional Center on New Year’s Eve, and with kidnapping a couple and stealing their truck at knifepoint the day after the escape.

The two inmates broke out of prison by cutting through the bars of a window near the kitchen and then through two perimeter fences, authorities said. A fence alarm failed to sound.

Vandever, a former stockbroker serving a 40-year term for murdering a client, and Rutan, a convicted burglar, then led authorities in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey on a manhunt. Rutan was captured in Spring Valley, N.Y., on Jan. 15.

Rutherford Police Chief Edward P. Caughey said that at about 5 p.m. on Jan. 6 Rutan went alone into Crosby Jewelers at 50 Park Ave. and asked a clerk if he could look at diamonds because he was shopping for an engagement ring.

Rutan returned with Vandever about the same time the next day. Vandever held a knife on the store clerk and Rutan brandished a gun that was later determined to be a toy, Caughey said.

Despite a warning from Rutan when he announced the robbery, however, the store manager pressed a silent alarm.

“When he pulled the alarm, they both turned around and fled,” Caughey said.

Neither victim was injured, and nothing was taken from the store.

About 11:46 p.m. the same night, Rutan held a 10-inch knife to the abdomen of a 7 Eleven clerk in Montvale, said borough Police Chief Joseph Marigliani. After Rutan left with about $300, Vandever, who allegedly was in the store pretending to be a customer, paid for a newspaper and also left.

The clerk then called police.

Fahy said he intended to prosecute the case after the two men are dealt with by Connecticut authorities.

FUGITIVE CAUGHT IN PARAMUS; Killer Is Found at Shopping Mall

By David Gibson and Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writers | Sunday, January 19, 1992

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

The wide-ranging manhunt for a killer who fled a Connecticut prison on New Year’s Eve ended late Saturday afternoon in the parking lot of Garden State Plaza, where Paramus police arrested him in the car he allegedly had stolen.

Frank Vandever, a 37-year-old former stockbroker with a penchant for dressing as a woman, was arrested about 5:15 p.m. and was in men’s clothes, said New York State Police Lt. Arthur Hawker, who coordinated several agencies in the weeks-long search.

“Paramus police saw the car in the parking lot,” Hawker said. “They had it under surveillance when Vandever came out, and as he approached the car, he was taken into custody without incident.”

Vandever was presumed to be armed and dangerous, but police found only a small pocket knife on him; he did not resist arrest.

“He appeared very surprised,” said Paramus plainclothes Detective Joseph Ackerman, who collared Vandever with Detective Jerry May. The detectives said they neared the car with guns drawn as Vanderver got inside.

“He tried to give us a story about how it is his car and he doesn’t know why we are stopping him,” Ackerman said. “He wasn’t convincing at all,” he added.

An eyewitness who claimed to have seen Vandever earlier in the day in a Bergenfield 7-Eleven said he looked “a little scroungy and was wearing a red flannel lumberjack coat, a scruffy beard, and his hair looked uncombed.”

But police said they weren’t sure it was Vandever. He was wearing a dark blue jacket when police transferred him to the Union County Jail on Saturday night; they declined to describe what he was wearing when he was arrested.

“7-Eleven was just one of many look-alike sightings,” Hawker said. “We had numerous sightings during the day. Citizens kept calling us saying they’d seen him here and there.”

Federal marshals were examining cash the man in the lumberjack coat used to buy a money order in Bergenfield to see if they could draw a connection to Vandever.

Vandever was serving a 40-year sentence in Connecticut for murdering a client who had caught him embezzling.

Because of his escape, he now faces federal complaints as well as a host of criminal charges in three states.

The arrest was a low-key finale to an occasionally frantic and sometimes antic manhunt that led hundreds of police with helicopters and dogs from Connecticut to New York to New Jersey and back again, tracking down dozens of false leads and at least twice letting Vandever flee from right under their noses.

On Saturday morning, Vandever apparently stole the car he was found with in Paramus when he returned to the Spring Valley, N.Y., motel where he had eluded FBI agents three days earlier.

Police said Vandever stole the 1984 Dodge Omni at 8 a.m. Saturday from an EconoLodge motel on Route 59.

The fugitive had been at the motel with a fellow escapee since a few days after their New Year’s Eve flight from Somers State Prison in Connecticut, about 100 miles away. They were recognized on Thursday afternoon by a motel resident, but fled when confronted by two FBI agents who apparently moved in before sufficient backup units arrived.

Vandever hopped a fence and bolted into nearby woods; his cohort, Ronald Rutan, ran but was arrested. Rutan was serving a 19-year term for burglary.

Police continued combing the area near the motel on Friday, with reporters in tow and often with unexpected results.

A man in a tattered green coat, described as looking like Vandever’s double, was stopped in Spring Valley three times on Friday by the FBI and police before he was finally cleared of suspicion.

“It’s crazy,” the man said. “These people have no idea what they’re doing. They made me miss my bus. ”

The focus shifted to Nyack, N.Y., later Friday, when a man wearing heavy makeup and carrying a fake bomb stole $10,000 from a drive-up bank teller there. Police still are not sure whether the robber was Vandever, or whether Vandever dressed as a woman during his flight.

As news of the manhunt spread on Saturday, the number of reported sightings some legitimate, some wild goose chases increased.

“It’s like a public phone booth in here,” a trooper at the special command center in West Nyack complained at one point. Officers on both sides of the state line followed up dozens of tips phoned in to police from Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, and Rockland counties.

At 10 a.m. Saturday, Vandever was seen in Clarkstown. At 11 a.m., he was in Upper Saddle River. At noon, he was in Closter. At 2 p.m., he was in Bergenfield, getting a $70 American Express money order at a 7-Eleven store. A half-hour later in Wayne, a suspicious hitchhiker answering Vandever’s description was spotted.

“He acted just like anybody else,” said the 7-Eleven cashier, who declined to give her name. “I guess he figured nobody knew him anyway. He was dressed like a regular guy. ”

Local police stopped by about 30 minutes later with photos of Vandever, whom the cashiers recognized, in part from his striking hazel-green eyes. FBI agents immediately followed, hot on the trail again.

At about 4:30 p.m., Paramus Officer Kenneth Ehrenberg, on routine patrol at Garden State Plaza, noticed the blue Omni in the shopping mall’s west parking lot. He called for backup, and waiting for Vandever, who emerged from the stores carrying no packages and got in the car.

“He returned to the car like an average person, got in the car, and at that point he was placed under arrest,” Ehrenberg said.

Vandever was convicted of killing a client, Ronald Hiiri of Stonington, Conn., who discovered that the stockbroker had been skimming his account.

Caption: PHOTO – STEVE HOCKSTEIN / THE RECORD – Fugitive suspect Frank Vandever, center, behind uniformed Officer Kenneth Ehrenberg, leaving Paramus police station Saturday night.

Notes: Late run version

3 NEWARK BOYS HELD IN CAR THEFTS AT MALLS; APPREHENDED AFTER CHASE IN TEANECK

Byline: By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, December 28, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A02

Three Newark youths drove a stolen car to Bergen Mall on Thursday, abandoned it in favor of two other cars, and were arrested when the cars collided in Teaneck after a chase on Route 4, police said.

The boys 15, 16, and 17 years old were charged with receiving stolen property and eluding police and were being held Friday in the Bergen County Juvenile Detention Center.

“It’s a gang,” Hackensack Deputy Police Chief John Aletta said. “Every year we get this. After questioning by youth officers, it was learned that they arrived at the mall together in a car stolen from Linden, which they left, and stole two other ones.”

About 2:20 p.m. Thursday, Hackensack Police Officer Mart Kobin heard a report of a theft of a 1990 Pontiac and chased a car matching that description on Route 4, Aletta said.

The car exited Route 4 at Queen Anne Road in Teaneck, where it crashed into a 1989 Chevrolet Cavalier, which was later determined to have been stolen from the Toys “R” Us parking lot adjacent to the Bergen Mall parking lot, where the Pontiac was stolen, he said.

The 17-year-old driver of the Pontiac and the two youths in the Cavalier abandoned the cars and fled on foot, Aletta said. They were arrested after a foot chase that ended on Minelli Place and Allan Court.

BODY FOUND ON GOLF COURSE IDENTIFIED

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, November 15, 1991

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

The skeletal remains of a body found on a Rockland County golf course have been identified as those of a 23-year-old Paramus man who had been missing since August, authorities said.

Jay Karl Papa died from numerous stab wounds to the chest, the Rockland County Medical Examiner’s Office said. He was identified Wednesday through dental records.

Papa’s body was discovered Monday afternoon in bushes at the old Chateau D’Vie Golf Course in New Hempstead by a man walking his dog.

Dr. Frederick Zugibe, Rockland medical examiner, said it was unclear whether Papa was killed at the scene or was dumped there later.

“This is such a horrible death. He was a nice kid,” said Paramus Police Chief Joseph Delaney, whose department, along with state and federal authorities, had been working on Papa’s disappearance.

Delaney said Papa, a 1986 graduate of Paramus High School, had been missing since the last week of August.

Fort Lee police found Papa’s red, two-door 1987 Mitsubishi parked on a borough street, near Route 9W, about a week and half ago, Delaney said. The car’s doors were locked, and there was nothing in it.

Residents in the area said the car had been parked there since Labor Day weekend, Delaney said.

Papa was wearing an extra-large short-sleeve shirt with a Florida State University logo, a crucifix, slacks, and white sneakers, the chief said. A Mitsubishi car key found on the body started the car found in Fort Lee.

Ramapo town police are investigating.

The Chateau D’Vie Golf Course is now being redeveloped under the name of the New York Country Club Golf Course.

Delaney said he played in the same windmill softball league with Papa, and that his father, former Paramus recreation commissioner Victor Papa, coached teams in the league.

“A very nice kid, very polite. He was liked by many people, especially people in the league,” Delaney said.

“The family was well-known and respected in the community.”

Caption: (5s, 3s, 2s, 1s) PHOTO – Jay Karl Papa in Paramus High School yearbook picture, 1986.

KILLER’S REQUEST FOR PAROLE IS REJECTED

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, August 10, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star B | NEWS | Page A03

A request for parole by Christopher Righetti serving a life sentence for the 1976 rape and murder of a 20-year-old New Milford woman was rejected this week, the state Parole Board’s executive director said Friday.
Robert Egles said the panel, weighing the seriousness of Righetti’s crime, also ordered a hearing on whether his next eligibility date in three years should be delayed.
Kim Montelaro, a journalism and English student at the University of Rhode Island, had gone shopping at Paramus Park Mall when she was abducted on Aug. 31, 1976, raped, then stabbed several times in the chest. Her body was found in a ravine near Washington Township’s Pine Lake Beach Club a few days later.
Righetti maintained through most of his trial that the killing had been an act of self-defense or an accident. In a hearing to determine whether he would tried as an adult, Righetti, then 16, claimed Montelaro lured him into her car, had sex with him, then turned on him with his knife.
Righetti’s lawyer abandoned the self-defense claim on the last day of trial, saying his client should be convicted of manslaughter.
In appeals of his murder conviction, the last one in 1982, a public defender contended Righetti’s police lineup appearance was illegal. The evidence was insufficient to compel Righetti to appear in the lineup during the search for Montelaro’s killer, the lawyer said.
But Righetti’s alibi witnesses failed to show up during his trial and prosecutors proved a knife and sheath found at the scene matched items he admitted purchasing shortly before the killing.
At age 15, Righetti was released from the state Training School for Boys and Girls after serving 13 months for raping an 18-year-old woman in a Bergen County park in 1974. In March 1976, he accosted another woman at knifepoint and demanded a ride home, but charges were not pressed after authorities assured the victim Righetti would receive psychiatric help.

Keywords: NEW MILFORD; MURDER; PRISON; WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP; KIDNAPPING; PARAMUS

MURDER SUSPECT IS AT PINES; LINKED TO N.Y. ARTIST’S DEATH

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, August 3, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star B | NEWS | Page A03

A 23-year-old Bronx woman, under psychiatric care at Bergen Pines County Hospital following a disturbance in Palisades Park on Thursday, is awaiting extradition to New York City as a suspect in the murder of a 93-year-old woman, police said.
Michelle McWilliams pushed her way into amateur painter’s Mathilde Poggensee’s Bronx home looking for money to buy drugs, Detective Thomas Aiello said Friday.
A neighbor who looked in regularly on the award-winning artist, who was said to be losing her hearing and sight in recent years, found Poggensee on Wednesday night face down on the living room floor, her mouth gagged and her arms tied behind her back with an electrical cord, Aiello said.
She died of asphyxiation, caused by the gagging, and multiple rib injuries, according to a medical examiner’s report. Police think Poggensee was attacked Sunday or Monday.
Police do not know why or how McWilliams came to New Jersey. Palisades Park Police Capt. Frank Martini said borough officers picked up McWilliams, barefoot and unkempt, about 9 a.m. Thursday when they went to a Roff Avenue taxi stand where a disturbance had been reported. McWilliams was violent and appeared to be emotionally disturbed, he said.
“We did not know she was wanted in New York at that time,” Martini said.
It was discovered during routine questioning before she was committed for psychiatric evaluation that a pocketbook in McWilliams possession was one of the items taken from Poggensee’s home after it was ransacked, Aiello said.
McWilliams mother, who was informed by the hospital that her daughter was under their care, informed police of her whereabouts when 43rd Precinct detectives called her Thursday morning, Aiello added.
McWilliams faces charges of second-degree murder and robbery in New York, Aiello said.

Keywords: MURDER; NEW YORK CITY; PALISADES PARK; DRUG; PARAMUS; MENTAL; ART

BOY, 15, DIES AFTER SNIFFING BUTANE IN CAR ELMWOOD PARK YOUTH PASSED OUT AT MALL

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, June 27, 1991

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

A 15-year-old Elmwood Park boy died Tuesday about an hour after he passed out while sniffing butane gas in the back seat of a friend’s car in Paramus, authorities said Wednesday.
Thomas Prokap was pronounced dead at 10:46 p.m. at Kennedy Memorial Hospitals at Saddle Brook, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.
A spokeswoman for the Bergen County Medical Examiner’s Office said an autopsy Wednesday failed to determine the cause of death. Toxicology tests, which usually take six to eight weeks, will be performed, she said.
Prokap was in the friend’s car at Garden State Plaza with three friends, whom Fahy declined to identify because they are juveniles. The prosecutor said they began “hanging out” in the mall’s parking lot about 7:45 p.m.
Sometime after 9 p.m., they drove to a store on Main Street in Hackensack, where Prokap bought a 2 1/2-ounce canister of Ronson butane fuel, Fahy said.
The other youths told authorities that, as they had seen Prokap do on occasion within the past week, he inhaled butane from the spray top on the canister, Fahy said.
They said they noticed he was drooling and appeared to be sleeping. When they couldn’t wake him, they drove to the hospital, he said.
The youths were not drinking and there was no evidence of drugs in the car, Paramus Police Chief Joseph Delaney said. Police do not anticipate charging the youths with any crime at this point, he said.
The investigation points pending the medical examiner’s toxicology tests to the butane, Delaney said.
Elmwood Park Police Chief Byron Morgan II said that he has heard of teenagers using inhalants to “achieve a high,” but he knew of no other cases in which a local youth had used butane.
“Any accident like this is a tragedy, a little more so when it involves the life of a child or a teenager,” he said.
Dr. Joseph Boyle, an associate professor of physiology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, said butane causes excitement, exhilaration, and delirium when inhaled. He also said it could act as a depressant.
“They get intoxicated, similar to alcohol,” he said of users.
Butane also causes a condition known as hypoxia, a depletion of oxygen in the body tissue to a point where it cannot sustain life, he said. And it does not take inhalation of a large quantity of the gas for it to occur, he added.
Boyle said another effect of butane, a volatile organic substance, is an irregular heartbeat.
Residents in the tight-knit Elmwood Park neighborhood where Prokap lived spoke highly of his family, whose other two sons attend Rutgers University, and of Prokap, whom they described as a tall, lean, “good-looking” boy.
“They’re great people. I don’t understand what went wrong,” a neighbor said.
Prokap, who was a sophomore at Elmwood Park Memorial High School who died 22 days short of his 16th birthday, was a former member of the Elmwood Park Little League and St. Leo Boy Scout Troop 80.
Among his survivors are his parents, John and Gloria, and two brothers, John and Gordon, all of Elmwood Park.
Record Staff Writers Jim Consoli and Wendy Zentz contributed to this article.

Keywords: ELMWOOD PARK; PARAMUS; YOUTH; FUEL; ACCIDENT; DEATH; VICTIM; TEST

Caption: PHOTO – PETER MONSEES / THE RECORD – A can of Ronson butane fuel, which carries warning against inhalation.

REPAIR SHOPS CALL HIM STINGRAY; CON MAN TAKES 3 SPORTS CARS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, March 8, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B01

Investigators in Paramus, Englewood, and Englewood Cliffs are looking for a con man who stole three sports cars two in one day that were brought in for repairs at automobile dealerships.
Posing twice as the owner of the cars and once as the son of the owner, the man stole two Corvettes and a Pontiac Firebird, police and dealership officials said Thursday.
“I’ve got to tell you something, this guy was cool,” said Greg Garabed, service manager at Stillman and Hoag Inc. of Englewood, where the man drove away with a red 1990 Corvette that had just had paint work done on its roof.
“Thirty years in the business and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Garabed said.
About 5:50 p.m. on Feb. 7, 10 minutes before closing, the man marched over to the Corvette and began examining the work. He said he was the son of Michael Knee, the 48-year-old Ridgewood man who had brought the car in.
“There were four Corvettes parked in a row in a secured area in the building,” Garabed said. “This guy walked right in and went over to the car. He had a lot of information about the car.”
After arguing that the painting should have been under warranty and initially refusing to pay, the man paid $200 and left with the car. About two minutes later, the actual owner arrived.
Knee said the service people did not believe him when he told them he had not sent his son to pick up the car.
“It’s an embarrassment for us,” Garabed said, adding that Knee was a longtime customer of the dealership.
The descriptions of the man in the three thefts were similar: 27 to 30 years old, about 6 feet, with an olive complexion and dark, slicked-back hair, a long, thin face, and a mustache.
On Feb. 7, a man fitting that description walked into Steven Nacht Cadillac in Englewood Cliffs and picked up a 1986 Pontiac Firebird that was in for repairs, although the work had not been completed, said Al Glinbiezi, the assistant service manager.
The man said he needed the car right away and that he would bring it back later, Glinbiezi said.
On Feb. 21, a man fitting the same description, but this time wearing some type of police insignia around his neck, insisted on picking up a 1987 Corvette brought to Malcolm Konner Chevrolet Geo in Paramus for transmission repairs, although the work had not been done.
Lt. Donald McNair of the Paramus Police Department said he wrote letters to automobile dealers in Bergen County and to national dealership associations to warn them about the scam.
“There’s a common denominator there, but I can’t put my finger on it,” McNair said.
“I’ve never had this happen before. I’m up against the wall and I don’t have any idea.”

Keywords: PARAMUS; ENGLEWOOD; ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS; MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT

WRONG GUY PICKS UP CAR FROM REPAIR SHOP

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, February 23, 1991

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

When Richard Petrocelli called a car dealership Thursday evening to see if the transmission on his 1987 Corvette had been repaired, he was told that he had already picked it up.
A service manager at the dealership, Malcolm Konner Chevrolet Geo in Paramus, had released the car earlier that day to a man impersonating Petrocelli, said Lt. Donald McNair of the Paramus Police Department.
Petrocelli said the manager told him the impersonator displayed a police badge or wallet card and said he needed the car immediately for an investigation, even though the repairs had not been completed.
“I still can’t believe this is happening to me,” Petrocelli said. “All you have to do is say the car is yours, and they turn the keys over to you? “
R. J. Konner, vice president of the dealership, called the situation “odd. “
Konner said Petrocelli knew the car was not going to be ready Thursday because the service department had received the needed parts only that day.
Petrocelli said he was told the work would be completed and the car ready on Thursday.
Petrocelli said his car is worth $30,000 equipped with a $3,000 compact disc player, a $1,000 cellular telephone, and special aluminium wheel rims that cost $750 each.
McNair, who said he has been investigating automobile thefts since 1972, agreed that the incident was “very unusual. “

Keywords: MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT; PARAMUS; REPAIR

KIDS EXCITED BY DRUG LESSONS PARAMUS PROGRAM DRAWS ENTHUSIASM

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, February 13, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NORTH CENTRAL BERGEN/YOUR TOWN RECORD | Page 1

To fifth-graders at the Paramus public schools, the Police Department’s DARE program urging children to stay away from drugs is a hit.
And to Paramus Police Detective Kevin Smith and Patrolman Bill Nutland, who are coordinating the 18-week pilot Drug Abuse Resistance Education program at Eastbrook and Westbrook middle schools, the students enthusiasm has been infectious.
The excitement was evident at DARE flag-raising ceremonies at the two schools. A rousing ovation, punctuated with “woof, woof, woof,” a la Arsenio Hall’s “dog pound,” greeted Nutland and Smith when they spoke before 115 10- and 11-year-olds and their teachers gathered at the gymnasium of the Westbrook School last week.
The officers were treated to a similar reception several weeks earlier at the Eastbrook School.
Both times the children had gathered to hoist the DARE flag and recite the pledge to say no to drugs. Rainy weather moved last week’s ceremony indoors. The change did not discourage the children, however. They remained as rambunctious as ever.
“What are you going to say when someone comes to you on the street and says, `Hey kid, you want to try some drugs? ” Nutland asked.
“No!” came the deafening reply, their voices bouncing off the walls of the gymnasium.
“Do you really mean it?” asked Nutland, like a preacher warming to the task.
“Yes!” echoed the chorus.
The DARE flag black with DARE in red letters and the credo, “To Keep Kids off Drugs,” in white is to remind visitors to the school that DARE is there, working everyday of the year, Nutland told the students.
The message seems to be sinking in. The children excitedly talked about what they are learning and how they feel about Nutland, Smith, and the other officers from the Police Department who come and help out.
Westbrook School’s Sumon Nandy, 10, said he learned that drugs are bad for him and could kill him. Jennifer Ward, 10, of the Eastbrook School said all the children were always excited to have “Kevin” Detective Smith around.
The officers go to the schools Nutland at Westbrook and Smith at Eastbrook three times each week. They play softball and football with the children and teach the DARE curriculum, which Eastbrook Principal Barbara Hyde said focuses on self-esteem and drug-related education.
Hyde said the school district and the Police Department chose the fifth grade to start the pilot program because it is a critical age to try to reach the children: They are under less parental supervision; they are sometimes with older students; and they are exposed to bad influences from the television and other media.
“There are more chances for them to make wrong decisions,” Hyde said. “There’s no guarantee that this is going to turn the world around, but a lot of things haven’t worked and this is a really positive program.”

Keywords: PARAMUS; DRUG; ABUSE; STUDENT; CHILD; SCHOOL; POLICE

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – ED HILL / THE RECORD – Fifth-graders standing with policemen who taught them how to avoid drugs. From left, Keith Smollin, Detective Kevin Smith, Laura Hofsommer, Patrolman Bill Nutland, and T.J. Cullen.