Shuttle fuselage
NEW YORK (AP) ABC, CBS, NBC
and Cable News Network said yester
day they will provide live coverage of
today's memorial servile for the as
tronauts who died aboard the space
shuttle Challenger.
The service, which President Rea
gan plans to attend, will be held at the
Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Coverage is scheduied i to begin at
12:30 p.m. EST.
By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A
Coast Guard cutter reported finding a
large piece of debris believed to be
part of the fuselage of the space
shuttle Challenger yesterday and
said parts of the cockpit appear to be
floating on the Atlantic Ocean.
The fuselage is the central body
portion of the shuttle. The segment
was hoisted aboard the Coast Guard
cutter Dallas and a spokesman re
ported, "they said it took everything
they had to get it up there on the
cutter, so it must be fairly large."
NASA divers were on the scene and
prepared to go down 140 feet where
DA asks for reversal
By PHIL GALEWITZ
Collegian Staff Writer
Centre County District Attorney
Ray Gricar has asked the state Su
preme Court to reverse a lower court
decision granting a retrial to a State
College man convicted of murdering
his former roommate.
Should the state's highest court
agree to hear Gricar's appeal, a
ruling would not be expected for
several months.
A three-judge panel of the state
Superior Court voted 2-1 earlier this
month to grant Subramanyam Ve
dam a new trial. The judges said
evidence had been presented in the
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ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" will broadcast a segment featuring
Penn State's ice cream short•course on Monday between 8 and 9 a.m.
Erma Bombeck, a featured reporter on the show, visited the University two
weeks ago to tape the segment about the University's internationally
acclaimed eight•day ice cream-making course.
the
daily
sonar indicated a substantial piece of
the Challenger lay.
An investigating board spent the
day checking TV tapes of the liftoff
taken from different angles and NBC
said the focus was on one of the solid
rocket boosters. •
Reporter Jay Barbree said a
frame-by-frame study of the film
seen by the public seemed to indicate
that a splice between two of the
booster's four segments sprung a
leak and "served like a blowtorch and
burned through the tank a 6,000
degree blow torch."
A source, speaking on condition he
not be identified, told The Associated
Press that "this is one piece of evi
dence . . . they are looking at it, but
there is nothing conclusive."
Earlier, NASA had expanded its
search for shuttle debris, dispatching
six Navy ships to probe the "missile
graveyard of the world." CreWs re
covered thousands of pounds of de
bris, including one of the shuttle's
control panels.
Experts were also examining a
piece of bone which washed up on a
beach and was found by a private
citizen.
case that was irrelevent and would
have prejudiced the jury.
The superior court ruled that a 1983
Centre County Court decision finding
Vedam guilty of first-degree murder
had been based partly on evidence
not relevent to the case. Vedam was
found guilty of killing Thomas E.P.
Kinser of Boalsburg, who was shot in
the head in December 1980.
"We are bringing the case to court
because we respectfully disagree
with the panel's decision," Gricar
said.
Amos Goodall, the local counsel for
Vedam, said material Gricar ad
mitted should not have been heard by
the jury, because it did not give a
olle • ian
believed found
At a news conference yesterday
evening, Lt. Cmdr. Jim Simpson of
the Coast Guard said the cutter Dal
las reported finding "a large piece"
and that there appeared to be parts of
the cockpit on the surface.
Asked whether there was any sign
of the bodies of the seven astronauts
who died• in Challenger when it ex
ploded on Tuesday, NASA spokesman
Hugh Harris said, "no."
Simpson would not give the location
of the sighting, but said it was far
offshore.
"They had multiple sonar hits indi
cating there is something large on the
bottom," he said.
A bone with blue fabric attached
washed up on a beach, and medical
technicians examined it to see if it
belonged to one of the
.seven astro
nauts killed in Tuesday's explosion.
The bone was found near Indialan
tic, 35 miles south of Cape Canaveral
and taken to a hospital at nearby
Patrick Air Force Base. NASA
spokesman Hugh Harris said the
bone. and tissue fragment measured
four inches by six inches by one inch.
NASA officials did not know what
kind of bone it was, and there nothing
of Vedam decision
motive for the murder
Gricar said the illegal evidence
presented involved a 14-pound syn
thetic ruby stolen from the Universi
ty's Mineral Reserch Building.
Vedam pleaded no contest in Jan
uary 1984 to stealing the ruby. Then-
District Attorney Robert Mix con
tended at the murder trial that Ve
dam had hid it in a forest five miles
out of State College and later shot
Kinser in the woods, believing Kinser
was there to take the ruby.
The ruby, which Vedam believed
worth thousands of dollars, was in,
reality worth a few hundred, Gricar
said. Later a woodcutter had found
the ruby and turned it over to Univer
Further charges filed in investment scam
By PETE BARATTA
and PHIL GALEWITZ
Collegian Staff Writers
A State CollQe man arrested last week in an
investment scam had further charges levied
against him Wednesday for theft by deception
and failure to invest funds allegedly given to him
by about 40 people from Centre County, western
Pennsylvania and Ohio.
More than 12 current or former officers of the
State College State Police, Ferguson Township
police and the State College Bureau of Police
Services were victims of the scheme, said State
College Criminal Investigator Thomas King.
As a result of .the scam, four State College
police officers were allegedly swindled out of
$13,250 by Gary H. McCaffrey from Oct. 2 to
Dec. 31.
Before the new charges were filed, a spokeswo
man for District Justice Clifford Yorks said that
victims had invested a total of $24,800 in the
scheme.
was to link it to an astronaut
"An anonymous citizen found a
navy blue sock with what appeared to
be a burned bone fragment attached
to it at 11:30 today at the high water
mark on the beach," said Steven
Okes, an Indialantic police commu
nications officer.
• He said police called NASA, which
instructed them to refrigerate the
find, then "20 minutes later they told
us to take it to the hospital at Patrick
Air Force Base."
Jim Mizell, a spokesman for the
Kennedy Space Center, called the
area offshore "the missile graveyard
of the world" because it contains the
wreckage of. scores of failed rockets
and the discarded first stages of
hundreds more.
"It will take some real expert to
take pieces and say it's not Snark,
Redstone, Pershing, Atlas and on and
on," he said.
Thousands of pounds of small
pieces of debris found floating on the
sea were aboard ships running search
patterns over 8,000 square miles,
northward from Cape Canaveral to
Daytona Beach.
Please see SHUTTLE,. Page 24
sity experts who identified it as the
stolen item.
Gricar added that Vedam had lured
Kinser into the woods before killing
him.
"The incidents with the ruby are
relevent to the case and related to
Kinser's death," Gricar said. "The
stolen ruby does present a motive for
the alleged murder of Kinser."
But Goodall said verdicts arising
from previous cases are "legally
inadmissable and (have) nothing to
do with the murder trial."
Under judicial regulations, Gricar
could have either brought the case. to
the entire Superior Court or filed an
appeal with the state Supreme Court.
McCaffrey, 31, allegedly led victims to invest
money in non-existent truckloads of videocas
sette recorders and stock in the London Stock
Exchange, Gail Brown, assistant office supervi
sor at Yorks' office, said yesterday.
The new charges are a result of an ongoing
investigation between University Police Services
and State College police. King said more charges
are expected.
McCaffrey, a former Pugh Street Parking
Garage employee, was arrested Jan. 12 by Uni
versity and State College police for failing to
return a leased car to the University Park
Airport. In addition, he was charged with issuing
a $2,600 check drawn on insufficient funds.
McCaffrey, 119 W. Suburban Ave., was ar
rainged Wednesday on eight more charges of
theft by deception and one charge of theft by
failure to make required disposition of funds,
Brown said.
McCaffrey is in Centre County prison awaiting
his Feb. 6 preliminary hearing where he will be
Friday, Jan. 31, 1986
Vol. 86, No. 121 24 pages University Park, Pa. 16802
Published by students of the Pennsylvania State University
©1986 Collegian Inc.
Nurses end walkout
By TABASSUM ZAKARIA
Associated Press Writer
HARRISBURG Negotiators
for the commonwealth and nurses
reached a tentative agreement
late last night to end a week-old
strike at 140 state-run hospitals,
prisons and health centers.
"We are prepared at this point
to suspend the strike," said Fred
Stull, spokesman for the Pennsyl
vania Nurses Association. "We
will be contacting our people im
mediately."
Stull said union members would
return to work for morning shifts
today.
The strike, which started
Jan. 22, was the longest involving
state employees since 1975,
according to mediator Thomas
Quinn.
"I think we got what we asked
for. It's consistent with what we
were able to achieve last sum
mer," said Murray Dickman,
state secretary of administration,
referring to settlements with other
state employees last year. "We've
Jordan: group could
harm black enrollment
By DAMON CHAPPIE
Collegian Staff Writer
University President Bryce Jordan
read the warning from a new black
student coalition yesterday and said
he "regrets very much" its threat to
the University's efforts to bring black
students to Penn State.
And the principal architect of the
University's minority recruitment ef
forts said the impending action "has
great potential" to decrease the num
ber of black students, despite a court
ordered effort by the Univerity to
recruit Blacks.
William Asbury, acting vice presi
dent for student services, said the
University will continue its minority
recruitment programs even though 13
black student organizations declared
they will no longer participate.
"I think it has great potential to
influence the number of black stu
dents (admitted) because we depend
on a number of black students to
recruit," Asbury said yesterday.
Asbury said the administration will
still strive to "meet the goals that we
have set for ourselves unless (Jor
dan) or the (University Board of
Trustees) changes that policy."
Jordan said he "regrets very much
the course of action" proposed by the
new Black Student Coalition Against
Racism, which announced Monday
night that it will work against minori
ty recruitment. The move came in
response to the trustees' two-week
old decision not to divest holdings in
South African-related companies.
"I understand the anger and an
guish these students feel. The issue is
not the evil in South Africa; we are all
sickened by what is happening there.
The issue is how one combats that
horrible situation."
Jordan said the University's policy
of investing only in companies that
sign the Sullivan Principles has been
a "positive force in an otherwise
calamitous situation."
The Jan. 18 trustees' decision to
form a committee to monitor those
companies, consider selective divest
ment and • initiate academic pro
grams for black South Africans "are
actions in which the University may
best use the limited influence it has,"
added Jordan.
Asbury said the monitoring com
mittee, which will give advice to
been telling them this was it, there
wasn't going to be any more."
Dickman said the three-year
contract includes reductions in
holidays, sick leave and in the
number of days off for new em
ployees. The contract is retroac
tive to July 1, 1985.
"We are accepting it reluctant
ly," Stull said. "However we be
lieve it is the best possible
settlement we are going to get.
The bargaining team has recom
mended the package be ac
cepted."
State officials entered the ten
and-a-half-hour bargaining ses
sion saying their final offer to the
nurses, pharmacists and other
health professionals will mirror
contracts signed by other state
employees last year.
Members of the Pennsylvania
Nurses Association were offered
increases of 3 percent, or 32 cents,
per hour the first year, 3 percent,
or .33 cents, per hour the second
year, and 3 percent, or 34 cents,
per hour the third year.
Jordan On University investments,
will be named next week. The com
mittee will include members of the
original committee that developed a
host of options the trustees could
adopt in response to South Afrcia, he
said.
More members will be appointed to
the committee which will include
Undergraduate Student Government
President David Rosenblatt, Grad
uate Student Association President
Brian Delßuono, Black Studies Direc
tor James Stewart, University Assis
tant Treasurers David Branigan and
Ray Nargi and incoming chairman of
the Faculty Senate Gregory Knight.
Asbury said the administration is
"interested in having a dialogue with
the coalition. Any student group that
needs to be heard can be heard by the
president or myself.".
Although a meeting has yet to be
scheduled between Jordan and
BSCAR's leadership, several admin
istrators have met informally with
coalition leaders.
University Vice President for Aca
demic Services Robert Dunham met
informally with BSCAR Chairman
Carlton Waterhouse Wednesday to
discuss BSCAR's resolution and the
situation in South Africa, Waterhouse
said.
Dunham did not comment yester
day on reports of the meeting.
Waterhouse said he met briefly
with Asbury yesterday and that a
more formal meeting is being sched
uled for next week.
Waterhouse said Jordan's
statement disappointed him because
it only addressed BSCAR's intention
to oppose minority recruitment and
ignored BSCAR's other resolves.
BSCAR said it will also "refuse
involvement with companies that op
erate in South Africa and voice dis
satisfaction with and opposition to the
University's attitude and actions to
ward the Black community."
Katrina Scott, president of the
Committee for Justice in South Afri
ca, said BSCAR formed not only in
response to the divestment decision
but also to a "negative climate for
Blacks" at the University.
"The fact is we see racism here,
our call is to end racism here. Up till
now all we've been doing is tolerating
it," Scott said.
charged with all allegations against him. He is
being held on $lOO,OOO bail, King said.
King said he does not know why some police
officers became victims of the scheme, adding
that the officers were contacted by McCaffrey on
a personal basis
"By law, McCaffrey, after making a verbal
agreement, is obligated to place the funds he
received in an account. But McCaffrey failed to
do that," King said.
McCaffrey operated under the business name
of Keystone Finance and Insurance Group, for
merly of 1200 W. College Ave. King said McCaf
frey legally sold insurance.
Tom Harmon, assistant director of University
safety, said University police are involved with
the investigation because the transactions be
tween McCaffrey and his first set of victims
occurred in the parking lot of the Applied Re
search Lab.
"The transactions occurred on campus; that's
why they're being investigated by our agency,"
Harmon said.