CASTLEGAR NEWS, Friday, July 7, 1978

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Top of Idaho Peak Looking Down on

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Bre n
"s Surprising the People you Meet
—CasNewsFoto by Bill Turner

Chessman’s Lawyer
Lives on in Obscurity

When lawyer Rosalie Ash-
er lost her first and last big
case, the world had a legend.

His name was Cary! Chess-
man. A convicted sex criminal
and best-selling death row
author, Chessman went to the
gas chamber grinning, after
evading eight other dates with
death and persuading millions
—including Asher—of his inno-
cence,

Near the end, thousands
protested his fate. Later, world
leaders condemned his execu-
tion and opponents of capital
punishment wept.

Now, 18 years later, living
in almost complete obscurity,
Asher says that at the time
nobody was as surprised by the
stir as she and her notorious
client. *

“It was no big deal, just
another death case,” she said
recently. “Nobody ever could
possibly foresee, least of all
Chessman, that it would be-
come a cause celebre,

“He was just kind of a punk
young criminal, who spent a Jot
of years in the joints, and who
was convinced he was going to
get knocked off. Nobody fore-
saw it would take so long.”

The campaign, as she calls
it, to keep Chessman alive,
lasted 12 years. She lost the
legal battle of a lifetime when
he died in a San Quentin gas
chamber May 2, 1960.

On that day, a woman
reporter who was one of the 60
witnesses, read his lips through
the glass moments before the
potassium cyanide pellets drop-
ped into the acid.

“Tell Rosalie goodbye,” he
said.
Asher retired from the
legal profession less than two
years after Chessman's death.
Now 59, she has suffered two
strokes and lives alone, un-
married, in the house in which
she grew up.

She resents implications—
including a strong one in a
recent made-for-TV movie—
that she and Chessman had a
romantic relationship. She said
she thinks he might actually
have looked forward to dying,
and said sometimes his ob-
stinacy so infuriated her that “I
could cheerfully have killed
him."

The only item of his she .

owns is an old Underwood type-
writer. She used it a few years
ago to write a book about the
case that no one wants to
publish.

“Oh, I've had some lovely

letters of rejection, most of°

them saying the writing was
fine but they didn't think the
interest was there,” she said.

Asher left the law mainly
because of her first stroke in
1961 and having to care for her
dying mother. But, she admit-
ted: “I feel a great cynicism
about the law and the way it’s
applied.

“The Chessman case was
an illustration very close’ to
home, but there are things you
can see almost anywhere, any
day.”

Chessman, by all accounts
a bull-headed, boastful, brilliant
man, represented himself at his
trial. He was accused of ab-
ducting two young women from
parked cars by posing as a
police officer with a red light in

- his car, then sexually assaulting

them.

Attempts to win a new
trial failed, but his execution
was delayed eight times, for 12
years. He was 38 and Asher 41
when he died.

Despite its length, their
relationship never crossed the
line between respect and love,
Asher insisted.

In the end, their parting
was brief. “I know I shook
hands with him.”

People Helping People Idea
Brings Assets of $212,000

The Credit Union Founda-
tion of British Columbia at its

activities, Additional funds for
disbursement to worthy indi-

annual meeting in Vi
June 21, reported assets of
$212,000.

The fc

{s_incor-

viduala and or come
as donations from individual
credit union members; con-

porated under the Societies Act
and registered under the Can-
ada Income Tax Act as a
charitable organization, The
aims of the foundation are
simply an extension of the basic
eredit union concept of people
helping people,” the trustees
stated in their annual report,

“Credit unions have never
claimed to be charitable in-
stitutions—only a means for

people to help and

from i 1 cred-
it unions and associated or-
ganizations for the general fund
or for memorials honoring
credit’ union pioneers; two
cents per adult member con-
tribute annually by provincial
credit unions through B.C.
Central Credit Union; annual
corporate membership dues,

though the government student
aid programs are very compre-
hensive, at times there are’
possibly some inadequate as-
pects. Nevertheless, the gov-
ernment program provides a
greater source of funds for
atudents than was available in
years past, ‘

“As a result, the trustees
have been giving very serious
consideration to allocating
funds to other types of pro-
grams outside the field of
di and more closely

and

dues,” 4
Foundation president Lu-
fe Suth

one another by managing their
own financial resources. The

Credit Union Foundation pro-

vides a means for members to
exemplify the truly commend-
able virtue of charity as well.

“The concept of a chari-
table foundation supported by
eredit union members in the

province was introduced some:

years ago by a few farsighted
and dedicated pioneers.

“The struggle has been to
build up the capital funds of the

Top Dogs on Display
At Castlegar Show

Residents of Columbia Gar-
dens and Fruitvale captured
the top prizes, or at least their
pets did, at a recent sanction
match held by the West Koote-
nay Kennel Club in Castlegar.

Kathy Morgenthaler of
Columbia Gardens and her
poodle Maude, obtained the
highest score in obedience, with
a total of 194 points out of a
possible 200. This is the third
year in a row that they have
taken the highest paints award,

In conformation, Margaret
Jones of Fruitvale woii the Best
in Match trophy with her Irish
Setter ‘Kian's Irish Mist’, other-
wise known as Rusty. The
setter won the sporting group,
and then won the coveted
over-all trophy over the best in

the other groups,

Other group winners were:

Hounds—An Afghan own-
ed by E. Innes of Cranbrook;

Working — A Doberman
Pinscher owned by Lee Jar-
chow of Procter;

Terriers—A Cairn terrier
owned by Laura Loposchuk of
Nelson;

Toys—A Yorkshire terrier
owned by Kathy Townsend of
Cranbrook;

Non-sporting—Llasa Apso,
owned by Laureen LeSergent
of Trail.

In other obedience com-
petition, Laureen LeSergent
won the highest score in Novice
Aand B classes with a score of
188 out of 200,

The next show in this area
will be in Nelson, Aug. 29-30,
when many breeds of purebred
dogs will again be on display
and competing for show points.

Joseph Vroom, Age 60
Funeral Held Friday.

Rosary service was held
last Thursday evening from St.
Rita's Catholic Church in
Castlegar, followed by a funeral
mass Friday morning, for Jo-
sephy Wynard Vroom, 60, who
died suddenly on Tuesday of
last week, ;

Born in Zwolle, Holland,
March 26, 1918, he received his
education in Holland and came
to Canada and Ontario in 1953.

He resided in London, Ont.
for eight years prior to moving
to Calgary in 1961. He was
married in Calgary in March,
1966, coming to Castlegar in
1972 where he operated Vroom
Flowers. He retired from active
business in 1976.

Mr. Vroom served his
country during the Second
World War, retiring from ac-
tive duty with the rank of

Aoooak . . . Sunmer!

We all agree the West Kootenay isa
beautiful corner of our country in which to
spend the summer of '78.

And at Castlegar Drug, we
have all your summertime
care needs. From insect
repellant and suntan lotion
to cafamine tation and
makeup.

Before you head out to
explore our Kootenay
country, head In to
Castlegar Drug.

Corner of Pine &
Columbia Avenues
Dial 365-7813
OPEN THIS SUNDAY
12-1p.m. &6-7 p.m.

colonel, During the war he was
recognized for bravery.

He was a member of the
Royal Canadian Legion and the
Roman Catholic Church.

Surviving are his wife,
Mary; six sons, Robin of Gray
Creek; Joseph, Henry, Val,
Mathew and Mark—all of Cal-
gary; three daughters, Mrs,
Robert (Zoe) Brownlee and
Mrs. Maaike Spencley, both of
Calgary and Dinah Vroom of
Williams Lake; four grand-
children; one brother and four
sisters in Holland.

Cremation was in Calgary,
where a memorial service was
held Sunday. Castlegar Funeral
Home was in care of arrange-

+ ments.

Cyclist and
Pdssenger
Both Charged

A driver of a motorcycle
and his passenger have both
been charged following an acci-
dent Saturday morning on
South Woodland Drive, 700

Block.

Keith Michael Halbauer of
Castlegar has been charged
with failing to yield the right-of-
way after the 1977 Honda
motorcycle he was driving was
in collision with a 1977 pickup.

Halbauer's passenger,
Robert Swetlikoff, also of
Castlegar, -who was taken to
Castlegar and District Hospital
with undetermined leg injuries,
has been charged with failing to
wear a safety helmet.

Driver of the pickup, which

an. esti $250

the earnings from
which are used in its charitable

cil noted that
government student aid pro-
grams had not reduced the
need for the foundation to
extend assistance to students,

“This past. year our appli-
cations from students have
doubled, Some of the students
are ineligible for government
grants and interest free loans
because they earned summer
wages above an allowable
amount, they are on less than a
full program of study, or are
taking non-accredited courses,

“The trustees take into
consideration the fact that al-

connected with various com-
munity projects, such as those
supported by local credit
unions.”

Our readers are In-
vited to express thelr
views freely In letters to
the editor. All letters dis-
cussing timely Issues will
be published provided
they are within the laws of
libel. Although noms de
plume may be used when
necessary, letters should
be short and carry the
name and address of the
writer. The editor retains
the privitege to edit letters
for brevity, style, legality
and taste. Address your
fetter to: The Castlegar
News, Drawer 3007, Cas-
tlegar, B.C. VIN SH4

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CASTLEGAR
NEWS

SECTION

Friday, July 7, 1978

Page B1

E>

FIRST eee tourlst booth for the Castlegar and District
Cc Ci be ly

Friday to

eC:
greet Canada Day visitors over the long weekend. Shown
here at the booth, located adjacent the Doukhobor Village,
following the signing of the guest book by Mayor Audrey
Moore, are, left to right, chamber president Searle Sheldon,
booth attendants, Lor! Nixon and Marla Kinakin, Mayor

Moore, booth attendant Jodie Wigen and chamber vice-
President Bill Jones. Working on the opening of the booth
was Jones’ last official act with the local chamber having now

moved to

Vernon. Over the holiday weekend numerous

visitors signed in. They came from various prairie points, the
State of Washington, California and Tokyo, Japan.

New Officer Takes
_ Command Next Month

Sgt. Bob Kraus, who is
presently commanding officer
at Princeton RCMP detach-
ment, has been named to
succeed Inspector Bruce Beau-
dreau as .commanding officer
here. .
Sgt. Kraus, who has 21

years service with the force,
has been stationed in several
areas including Vancouver Is-
land, Kelowna, as well as the
Northwest Territories.

He is married and has
three children. His duties here
begin Aug. 15,

are in
Order!

Congratulations

| MITCHELL

BUILDALL

Holiday Weekend Busy
For Local Firemen

An active holiday weekend
was reported by fire chief Rene
Archambault who attended no
less than four incidents begin-
ning as early as Thursday
evening with the last call
Monday evening.

A fire Monday, at 410
Seventh Avenue, North, result-
ed in an estimated $3,000 to the
basement with some smoke
damage upstairs. Archambault
says the fire originated from a
mattress in a basement bed-
room. The incident is still under
investigation.

Archambault said he made
a personal call to a home on

Car-Bicycle
Collision Under

Investigation

Castlegar RCMP are in-
vestigating an accident in-
volving a collision between a
1965 Valiant and a bicycle at
the corner of Columbia Avenue
and Juniper Street at 5:30 p.m.
on Wednesday of last week.

Police say the car was
driven by William Ostoforoff of
Castlegar, and the cyclist was
Ronald Binns, 20, of Trail.

Ninth Avenue, South, after
receiving a call from a woman
who had received a bad scare
after attempting to speed up
the heating of the charcoals of a
barbecue by dousing them with
gas—only to have the container
eateh fire. She had originally
used solid fuel but was attempt-
ing to hurry up the process,

No damage or injuries
occurred although a new truck
and boat were very close’ by.

Archambault requests the
general public not use this type
of fuel around a barbecue as
most occurrences of this type
do not end so fortunate.

The fire siren in the north
section of Castlegar sounded
long and loud Friday afternoon
around 4:30. This was blamed
on a short believed caused by
the wet weather. There was no
fire.

On Thursday evening, the
roof of a CP Rail shed, just
below the overpass on Colum-
bia Avenue, sustained damage
from flames. The ROMP alerted
the fire department—who im-
mediately put out the fire.

The CP Rail speeder, which
the shed housed, escaped dam-
age.

Term Deposits with Higher Interest Rates are Now In Effect.

Term Deposits

More Options, Too! Call Us Now for the New Higher Interest Rate Schedule
oiler eden hehdi ia cht

CASTLEGAR 365-3375 — SOUTH SLOCAN 359-7221

(The following story, about
a reformed convict who is
searching for land in the Koote-
nays to get a Boys Town of B.C.
underway, appeared in last
Friday's Vancouver Province.
It was written by David
Virtue.)

_ 2 «

Arthur Meunier has spent
42 of his 53 years in prison—105
prisons to be exact—in the U.S.
and Canada,

Twenty-four years were
spent in solitary confinement;
31 months chained by his neck
in the notorious Devil's Island
pirson in Alabama.

“If you hate enough you
survive. You fight back. Inside

- they make or break you," said

Meunier, a small, balding man.

Meunier has spent his life
hating—everyone, from his fos-
ter parents who, he said, bru-
tally treated him at the age of
three, to the guards,

But seven years ago his life
was changed by a 14-year-old
boy who came to visit him in
solitary confinement in Leaven-
worth, Kan.

“His parents were Pente-
costal preachers, but the kid
didn’t say a word. He looked at
me through the bars of my
solitary confinement cell and
said he wanted to be my friend.
He said he loved me and
wanted to correspond with
me.”

. The kid's transparent
Christian life had a dramatic
affect on the hardened con.

“For the next four years
we wrote to each other and he
shared with me the simple
gospel of Jesus. It wiped me

Kootenays Possible Site

Ex-Con Plans for Boys Town

out. I broke down and cried for
the first time. I responded like
a hungry man for affection.
Slowly the hate evaporated, I
began to read the Bible and the
love of Christ filled me. I was
converted.”

On the road to visit him
one day, the boy was killed. He
never had a chance to see the
changed con.

Meunier was only 11 when
he was first arrested for
stealing a toy watch worth a
nickel in his hometown of
Moncton, N.B.

His problems, he said,
started much earlier when his
adopted parents made it clear
they resented his intrusion into
their lives and he became the
butt of their retaliation.

“They hated me so much
they hid me ina cellar with the
rats and mice," he recalled. “I
ate off a cardboard box in the
woodshed with a dog and cat."

Given a two-year suspend-
ed sentence he returned home
only to get hurled out of the
house.

Hospitalized with a broken
jaw, nose and ribs he returned
to the county jail. He was the
youngest inmate, but among
the prisoners he found accept-
ance.

At 13 he was released, but
because the only kindness he
had ever experienced was
behind bars, he quickly com-
mitted another crime and was
given another two years in jail.

When he was released he
committed another crime and
got two more years,

“I was cruelly treated by
the staff. I was beaten, punch-

ed, black-jacked — everything
except homosexually assault-
ed.”

Fleeing to the U.S. where
he heard prisons were better,
Meunier was jailed again, this
time in the infamous Alcatraz in
San Francisco Bay, two cells
away from Robert Stroud, the
celebrated Birdman of Alca-
traz.

“I was at his side when he
died at a U.S. medical centre in
Springfield, Mo., years later,”
he recalled.

Meunier said he also knew
the mafia godfather, Vito Geno-
vese, and spent time with him
in Leavenworth. “I was with
him when he died of liver
poisoning.”

He also spent time with
Alvin Karpis, Canada's answer
to Al Capone, who is now in
Spain.

Meunier has seen a lot of
violence in his time.

“Once I killed a sheriff ina
courtroom in Alabama and got
the death sentence. I was
sentenced to the electric chair
for manslaughter, but four days
before I was due to go to the
execution chamber, the gover-
nor was advised to grant me a
new trial, and I was sentenced
to seven years for manslaugh-
ter.”

Meunier was so full of
hatred and vengeance that he
was placed in solitary confine-
ment and chained by the neck
for 31 months. “I never shaved,
bathed or brushed my teeth in
all that time.”

While in solitary he dis-
covered he had gall stones.
With no prison doctors, two
inmates operated on him witha
razor blade with anaesthetic.
One hour after surgery he was
chained in his cell again.

At one point in his prison
career he wrote threatening
letters to Presidents Johnson,
Ford and Nixon and got a total
of 12 years in various prisons.
“Then the U.S. Secret Service
discovered that I was doing it
to stay in prison.”

Meunier has spent time in
every major maximum security
prison in the U.S. and Canada,
and that includes Oakalla and
the B.C. Penitentiary in New
Westminster. He escaped once
from Oakalla, he said.

So full was he of hatred
that once, while jailed in Terra
Haute, Ind., in 1967, he ob-
tained 40 pounds of cyanide in
order to kill off the whole
prison staff. “A prisoner squeal-
ed on me and my genocide plan

{Con't. Pg. B5, Col. 5)

The Lid Comes Off
Tuesday, July 11th!

We're new in town . . . and on our opening day,
we can't think of a better way to greet
Castlegar than with these specials . . .

Bapco’s Best

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until Tuesday, July 25th

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damage, has been identified as
Leo Earl Sommers of Castle-
gar.

Damage,to the motorcycle
has been estimated at $50.

Dull Saws, a

Tools, etc?

Then it’s ti
time to see if.

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(Behind Castle Theatre)
965-7395

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21 PINE STREET, CASTLEGAR
PHONE 365-7782 —

mated at $20 to the bike and
$200 to the car.

There were no injuries report- G
ed.
Damage has been esti- pnt

Exterior Paint $ ]
Latex or Gloss House Paint (Oil
Base) al.

Treat yourself . . . to beautiful hair
: ® Distinctive Styling for Today’s People

We Are Open
Tuesday - Saturday

3-30 a.m.

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Thurs. to 7:00 p.m.

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) 7 Pine St.

365-3744

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Company Ltd,
© Parking Areas
© Driveways
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Call George at
352-6435
or Rob at

354-4303

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