U.S. Briefs

October 22, 1995
Web posted at: 1:20 a.m. EDT

Foster leads Louisiana primary

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- In Louisiana, the votes were being tallied from Saturday's primary election to see who will replace retiring Gov. Edwin Edwards.

With just 8 percent of the returns reported at midnight EDT, conservative Republican Mike Foster was leading with 24 percent.

None of the 16 candidates was expected to get the 50 percent of the vote necessary for an outright win.

Black airman's WWII conviction overturned

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Fifty years after he was convicted of a felony after trying to enter an all-white officers club, Roger C. Terry's conviction has been reversed.

In 1945, Terry was an army lieutenant and bomber pilot with the famed Tuskegee airmen, the all-black 477th Bomber Group. He joined other black military officers, in trying to enter an all-white officers club at Indiana's Freeman Field. When a guard refused to let them in, Terry went around him and was later convicted of "jostling" a superior.

Back home in Los Angeles, Terry earned a law degree at the University of Southern California. He suspects he never passed the bar because he had to acknowledge his court- martial. Instead, he became an investigator for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office and later, a county probation officer. He retired in 1984.

Man sentenced to 200 years in prison for 1955 murders

CHICAGO (AP) -- A former stable worker was sentenced Friday to at least 200 years in prison for the 1955 deaths of three boys who were found strangled and naked in a forest.

Cook County Judge Michael Toomin said he wished he could have given Kenneth Hansen the death penalty, which did not exist at the time of the murders.

The boys -- ages 11, 13 and 14 -- disappeared Oct. 16, 1955. Authorities believe Hansen, now 62, lured them to a stable and sexually assaulted at least one, then strangled them when one threatened to tell police.

Hansen was arrested in 1994 after federal agents investigating another Chicago case found a witnesses who implicated Hansen. Hansen, who maintained he was in Texas when the boys were killed, was convicted last month.

University to offer course on Simpson trial

OSHKOSH, Wisconsin (AP) -- The University of Wisconsin- Oshkosh will offer a class next fall that will focus on the recent O.J. Simpson murder trial and other sensational cases.

The class will begin by looking at other trials before moving to the significance of the Simpson case. Students will study the trial's components, including the role of the judge, prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, the jury and the news media. The course will also look at the trial's effect on race relations.

"It's not going to be a trivia course," said Martin Gruberg, who will teach the class.

Driver with 'Peace' license plate attacks truck

TUSTIN, California (AP) -- A motorist whose license plate reads "Peace 95" attacked a truck with a baseball bat and threw a can of air freshener at it after being stuck behind the slow-moving vehicle.

"She said she was in a hurry and was getting frustrated," said Peter Doumas, of the California Highway Patrol. Lisa Lind, 26, who had been tailgating the truck on a two-lane canyon road, was never able to make contact with it using her aluminum bat because it was too windy.

Lind was charged Thursday with investigation of reckless driving and brandishing a baseball bat, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, and having a concealed weapon, a pen knife.

Doumas said he couldn't help but ask Lind about the license plate message. "She told me she got it because she thought there was so much violence going on in today's society," he said.