By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer
QUITMAN — After seven hours of deliberation, visiting Judge Paul Banner announced a hung jury on Tuesday morning in the murder trial of William Burnard Kear, 64, of Winnsboro, who claimed self-defense in the shooting death of his neighbor, 63-year-old Norman Johnson.
Three women and nine men made up the jury that heard testimony and arguments during the seven-day trial. The re-trial could go before Judge Banner at the Judicial Center in Quitman as early as September, said bailiff and Wood County Sheriff’s Department deputy Shannon Love.
Kear shot and killed Johnson with a .22-caliber revolver on the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2006, on a dirt road connecting the farmers’ property near the 4000 block of North Farm Road 312, the prosecution and defense said.
Johnson — a self-employed farmer, trucker and rancher — was found dead on the side of the road at about 4:30 p.m. near his tractor, which was still running in low-gear neutral, its shredder still cutting, about 70 yards from the gate to Kear’s 100-acre field, investigators testified last week.
Kear pled not guilty by way of self-defense and claims Johnson sped at him, ramming his bigger tractor into Kear’s before he shot him out of fear for his life, said defense lawyer Clifford “Scrappy” Holmes. Sue Johnson, wife of 44 years to Johnson, cried and shook as closing arguments were given Monday morning.
“(Johnson) intended to come home and have lunch with his wife that day, to sleep in his bed that night,” said District Attorney Jim Wheeler. “William Burnard Kear took away all his tomorrows, and that ain’t right.”
Read full story here.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Soldier Given Proper Burial 143 Years After Death
By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer
LATCH - A Confederate soldier from Upshur County whose remains were disrupted several times was laid to rest on Saturday, 143 years after his death.
The burial ceremony that drew nearly 300 people to Hopewell Cemetery was led by Civil War-era re-enactors and descendents of the military leader.
Col. Cullin Redwine Earp commanded the 10th Texas Cavalry C.S.A. in 1863, leading his men into at least 21 major conflicts including bloody clashes at Chickamauga, Ga., Atlanta, Ga. and Franklin, Tenn. He died, possibly of battle wounds, in 1865 in Upshur County.
"Let this remind us that we too are mortal and our bodies shall molder into dust," said Jamie Eitson, a Tyler pastor whose sobering words echoed across the quiet graveyard.
Visitors filed by Earp's closed casket on Friday. Others escorted a formal procession of Earp's horse-drawn funeral wagon on Saturday morning into downtown Gilmer where Sons of Confederate Veterans spoke of his service to America.
Read full article here.
Staff Writer
LATCH - A Confederate soldier from Upshur County whose remains were disrupted several times was laid to rest on Saturday, 143 years after his death.
The burial ceremony that drew nearly 300 people to Hopewell Cemetery was led by Civil War-era re-enactors and descendents of the military leader.
Col. Cullin Redwine Earp commanded the 10th Texas Cavalry C.S.A. in 1863, leading his men into at least 21 major conflicts including bloody clashes at Chickamauga, Ga., Atlanta, Ga. and Franklin, Tenn. He died, possibly of battle wounds, in 1865 in Upshur County.
"Let this remind us that we too are mortal and our bodies shall molder into dust," said Jamie Eitson, a Tyler pastor whose sobering words echoed across the quiet graveyard.
Visitors filed by Earp's closed casket on Friday. Others escorted a formal procession of Earp's horse-drawn funeral wagon on Saturday morning into downtown Gilmer where Sons of Confederate Veterans spoke of his service to America.
Read full article here.
Aviation Museum Officially Gets Off The Ground
By LAUREN GROVERStaff Writer
Two vintage Air Force fighter planes whirred across the sky Saturday morning, shaking the ground where hundreds of spectators celebrated the grand opening of the Historic Aviation Memorial Museum in its roomier spot at the Tyler Pounds Regional Airport.
"Oh, I remember this sound," said Red Lay, of Tyler, a Navy veteran of World War II. "When we were in Iwo Jima, the B29s would darken the sky, there were so many. They were on their way to Japan."
Chartered in 1985 and opened in 2002, the museum inhabited an old hangar that soon filled to the brim with memorabilia, said museum docent Marjorie Mustard.
HAMM moved into the closed north terminal, adding 9,000 square feet for its exhibits. Parts of the museum were open to visitors in July 2007, but now the museum is complete, she said.
"We wanted to get all the kinks out," she said, "and thank East Texas for all its support up to this point. So it's a free exhibit day."
Organizers estimated 2,000 people milled through the museum grounds on Saturday and admired 20 resident and visiting vintage war and commercial planes parked outside, some built in the 1940s.
(photo by Scott Lieberman/Tyler Morning Telegraph/AP)
Read full article here.
Cancer Camp Sparks Hope For 11th Year
East Texas Health
By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer
Like old war buddies, they gathered Wednesday and recalled battle stories of persevering, of wounds mended and of looking death in the eye and living to tell about it.
Cancer is what the 60 campers attending Great Getaway this week at Pine Cove have in common, but among these veteran survivors, hope is as contagious as their smiles and bold attitudes.
"Fifteen years, ovarian cancer, and you're not supposed to survive that one," Nancy Eckert, of Athens, says with a nod of triumph. "At camp, you see the same people each year, and that's rejoicing."
Next to her sat friend Louise Shelby, who traveled from Austin to attend.
Ms. Shelby was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer at 9 years old called rhabdomyosarcoma and was one of the first three child patients to be successfully treated for it at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in 1971.
A patch covers her right eye above a scar on her right cheek where doctors removed cancerous sinus and ocular tissue. She received two primitive chemotherapy drugs and radiation and has had no relapse.
"We were the first generations (to survive rhabdomyosarcoma)," she says. "No one knew what was going to happen. We were telling them with our bodies."
Each year longtime cancer survivors mix with those recently diagnosed to create a supportive hope-filled three-day retreat.
Read the full article here.
By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer
Like old war buddies, they gathered Wednesday and recalled battle stories of persevering, of wounds mended and of looking death in the eye and living to tell about it.
Cancer is what the 60 campers attending Great Getaway this week at Pine Cove have in common, but among these veteran survivors, hope is as contagious as their smiles and bold attitudes.
"Fifteen years, ovarian cancer, and you're not supposed to survive that one," Nancy Eckert, of Athens, says with a nod of triumph. "At camp, you see the same people each year, and that's rejoicing."
Next to her sat friend Louise Shelby, who traveled from Austin to attend.
Ms. Shelby was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer at 9 years old called rhabdomyosarcoma and was one of the first three child patients to be successfully treated for it at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in 1971.
A patch covers her right eye above a scar on her right cheek where doctors removed cancerous sinus and ocular tissue. She received two primitive chemotherapy drugs and radiation and has had no relapse.
"We were the first generations (to survive rhabdomyosarcoma)," she says. "No one knew what was going to happen. We were telling them with our bodies."
Each year longtime cancer survivors mix with those recently diagnosed to create a supportive hope-filled three-day retreat.
Read the full article here.
Social Security Numbers Exposed On Hospital Bills
(printed April 23, 2008)
By Lauren Grover
Staff Writer
Some 2,000 medical bills were mailed around East Texas last week with patients' Social Security numbers visible on the envelope after a technical glitch skewed billing at the collection agency used by the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler.
Chief Operating Officer Rob Marshall at UTHSCT said the problem was quickly addressed and fixed, but his disappointment in collection agency CBE Group Inc. might not be repairable.
"We're in negotiations ... I can't confirm or deny that we'll be with (CBE) in the future," he said Tuesday evening. "But we do have a different set of rules on handling issues like this and have already said how to safeguard this in the future."
The number of area residents whose numbers were exposed isn't known because multiple bills could have gone to one patient, said spokeswoman Rhonda Scoby. The Social Security numbers were never floating around the public, but were sent from secure sites at UTHSCT to CBE and then straight to the post office and to the patient's home, she said.
The hospital is taking full responsibility for the error and asking all affected patients to contact their business office, Marshall said.
"It was a small glitch that we absolutely own up to and want to be able to take care of anyone who has issue as a result," he said.
Read the full story here.
By Lauren Grover
Staff Writer
Some 2,000 medical bills were mailed around East Texas last week with patients' Social Security numbers visible on the envelope after a technical glitch skewed billing at the collection agency used by the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler.
Chief Operating Officer Rob Marshall at UTHSCT said the problem was quickly addressed and fixed, but his disappointment in collection agency CBE Group Inc. might not be repairable.
"We're in negotiations ... I can't confirm or deny that we'll be with (CBE) in the future," he said Tuesday evening. "But we do have a different set of rules on handling issues like this and have already said how to safeguard this in the future."
The number of area residents whose numbers were exposed isn't known because multiple bills could have gone to one patient, said spokeswoman Rhonda Scoby. The Social Security numbers were never floating around the public, but were sent from secure sites at UTHSCT to CBE and then straight to the post office and to the patient's home, she said.
The hospital is taking full responsibility for the error and asking all affected patients to contact their business office, Marshall said.
"It was a small glitch that we absolutely own up to and want to be able to take care of anyone who has issue as a result," he said.
Read the full story here.
Land-Feud Murder Trial Ends First Day Of Testimony
(printed April 23, 2008)
By Lauren Grover
Telegraph Staff Writer
QUITMAN - The feud of two Winnsboro neighbors climaxed when they met on a dirt road between pastures in October 2006, rammed tractors and one shot the other to death, two Wood County investigators testified Tuesday in the murder trial of William Burnard Kear.
Judge Paul Banner presided over the trial's start Tuesday in the Judicial Center in Quitman where some 20 witnesses - including wives Debra Kear and Sue Johnson - were sworn in.
Kear, 64, shot and killed his neighbor, Norman Johnson, 63, with a .22-caliber revolver on the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2006, on Johnson's property near the 4000 block of North Farm Road 312, the prosecution and defense said.
The two men's land dispute escalated into a lawsuit they filed not long before the encounter. Kear was charged with murder on Oct. 5 and released on $25,000 bond that evening.
Kear is pleading not guilty by way of self-defense and claims Johnson sped at him, ramming his bigger tractor into Kear's before he shot Johnson, defense lawyer Clifford "Scrappy" Holmes said in his opening argument.
"Mr. Johnson yelled 'I'm going to take your (expletive) head off' and hit Mr. Kear's tractor with the blade of his bucket (loader)," Holmes said.
Read the full story here.
By Lauren Grover
Telegraph Staff Writer
QUITMAN - The feud of two Winnsboro neighbors climaxed when they met on a dirt road between pastures in October 2006, rammed tractors and one shot the other to death, two Wood County investigators testified Tuesday in the murder trial of William Burnard Kear.
Judge Paul Banner presided over the trial's start Tuesday in the Judicial Center in Quitman where some 20 witnesses - including wives Debra Kear and Sue Johnson - were sworn in.
Kear, 64, shot and killed his neighbor, Norman Johnson, 63, with a .22-caliber revolver on the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2006, on Johnson's property near the 4000 block of North Farm Road 312, the prosecution and defense said.
The two men's land dispute escalated into a lawsuit they filed not long before the encounter. Kear was charged with murder on Oct. 5 and released on $25,000 bond that evening.
Kear is pleading not guilty by way of self-defense and claims Johnson sped at him, ramming his bigger tractor into Kear's before he shot Johnson, defense lawyer Clifford "Scrappy" Holmes said in his opening argument.
"Mr. Johnson yelled 'I'm going to take your (expletive) head off' and hit Mr. Kear's tractor with the blade of his bucket (loader)," Holmes said.
Read the full story here.
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