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villages/woman/ AP Headlines Update Page
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Swift murder conviction in abortion doctor's death |
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Pennsylvania woman seeks thrill of the hunt -- for antlers |
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Maine fur-free first lady lauded |
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 Professional Women's Village News
By The Associated Press
Swift murder conviction in abortion doctor's death
By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER
Associated Press Writer
WICHITA, Kansas (AP) - An activist who confessed to gunning down one
of the only U.S. doctors to offer late-term abortions faces a sentence
of life in prison after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.
Jurors took just 37 minutes Friday to convict Scott Roeder for
putting a .22-caliber gun to Dr. George Tiller's forehead and pulling
the trigger in the foyer of a church.
Roeder's attorneys had hoped to argue for a lesser conviction of
voluntary manslaughter, based on the defendant's belief that the killing
was justified to save the lives of unborn children. But the judge threw
out that defense, leaving jurors to choose between a murder conviction
or acquittal.
Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Missouri, admitted his actions on the
witness stand. Defense attorney Mark Rudy described his case as
"helpless and hopeless.''
"I've never seen anyone lay himself out as much as Mr. Roeder did,''
Rudy said after the verdict.
Prosecutors carefully sidestepped the abortion debate as they painted
Roeder as a cold and careful killer who methodically planned his attack.
But both sides of the abortion debate lined up to respond to the
verdict.
Abortion-rights advocates said the decision would send a message to
the militant fringe of the anti-abortion movement.
Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, said
she hoped the verdict would be a "deterrent to those that that are
considering following in Roeder's footsteps.''
"While the verdict won't bring back Dr. Tiller, it was very important
justice was done today for the safety and security of other abortion
providers across the country and women's ability to access abortion
care,'' Saporta said.
Troy Newman, president of Wichita-based Operation Rescue, said
"pro-life was not on trial. An insane man doing an insane thing was on
trial.''
Roeder could be considered for parole after 25 years. But prosecutor
Nola Foulston said she would seek to ensure that he serve at least 50
years before being eligible. Sentencing was set for March 9.
Tiller's family held hands and fought tears as the verdicts were
read. Tiller's widow, Jeanne, later released a statement saying the jury
had "reached a just verdict.''
The family said it wanted Tiller to be "remembered for his legacy of
service to women, the help he provided for those who needed it and the
love and happiness he provided us as a husband, father and
grandfather.''
In a November interview with The Associated Press, Roeder admitted
shooting Tiller in the foyer of the Wichita church where the doctor was
serving as an usher. On the witness stand, he testified he felt that
Tiller placed unborn children's lives in "immediate danger.''
During closing arguments Friday, Rudy urged the jury to reject the
murder charge. "No one,'' he said, "should be convicted based on his
convictions.''
Rudy mentioned leaders who stood up for their beliefs, including
Martin Luther King Jr. They were "celebrated individuals (who) stood up
and made the world a better place.''
"They leave their marks based on their words and deeds,'' Rudy said.
But prosecutor Kim Parker said Roeder was "simply guilty of the crime
he has been charged with.''
Prosecutor Ann Swegle told jurors to use their "common sense'' and
find Roeder guilty based not only on the state's case but also on
Roeder's own testimony in which he described how he killed Tiller in a
"planned assassination.''
"There could be no other verdict in this case,'' she said.
Wearing a dark suit with a red tie, Roeder sat expressionless as the
verdict was read. He moved his head toward the judge and to the jury as
each juror confirmed the decision.
Tiller's Wichita clinic was the focus of many protests and had been
under investigation by a former state district attorney who accused the
doctor of skirting Kansas' abortion laws. In 2009, Tiller was acquitted
of misdemeanor charges of violating Kansas restrictions on late-term
abortions.
Roeder, the sole defense witness, testified Thursday that he
considered elaborate schemes to stop the doctor, including chopping off
his hands, crashing a car into him or sneaking into his home to kill
him.
But in the end, Roeder told jurors, the easiest way was to walk into
Tiller's church and shoot him.
"Those children were in immediate danger if someone did not stop
George Tiller,'' Roeder told jurors.
But after hearing Roeder testify, District Judge Warren Wilbert ruled
his lawyers had failed to show that Tiller posed an imminent threat and
the jury could not consider a manslaughter verdict.
Roeder also was convicted of aggravated assault for threatening two
church ushers who tried to stop him from fleeing.
Associated Press Writer Roxana Hegeman contributed to this report.
Pennsylvania woman seeks thrill of the hunt -- for
antlers
By AD CRABLE
Lancster Intelligencer Journal
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) - Bethe Gettle lies awake at night straining to
figure out where buck deer might have "dropped'' their antlers.
"I'm not even kidding. I think about sheds every single day,'' she
says.
"I know I'm not normal.''
To gauge the intensity of her passion for finding the polished bones
that fall off the noggins of male deer each year, consider that she
loves just about anything outdoors.
She thinks nothing of jumping into her pickup truck and driving alone
to Illinois for a deer hunt.
The 32-year-old Denver woman traps. She ice fishes. She does some of
her own taxidermy. She hunts deer with a rifle, flintlock and bow and
arrow. She hunts turkeys. She hunts waterfowl from local blinds to the
Atlantic Ocean. She's shot bears in British Columbia, wild hogs in Texas
and snowshoe hares in Maine.
She tries to hook other women on the outdoors as an instructor in
"Women in the Outdoors'' workshops.
But none of it consumed her as the winter day in 2006 when she was
checking her trap line on a Lebanon County farm. Walking across a cut
corn field, she looked down and there it was, tines up: a small forked
antler, one side of what was probably a four-point buck.
"I thought, 'That thing is precious,''' she remembers.
Up to that point, she'd always heard that you almost never find
downed antlers and that they are gobbled up by rodents shortly after
they hit the ground.
But the following week, when she found a spike, again without really
looking, she was smitten.
The next year, she hit on the idea of building her own antler trap.
From a farm supplies store she bought a feeding trough. She turned it
upside-down and partially raised it with stakes.
Underneath she spread corn and placed chicken wire all around so that
the deer would crane their necks underneath and the wire would pull
their antlers off when they disengaged.
It was a crazy idea and she was placing out 50 to 100 pounds of corn
a day. But she did manage to snare two sets of antlers.
She knew she needed to start scouring the landscape. But she also
knew you just don't go out walking willy-nilly and blunder onto racks.
You need to know where bucks are most likely to be when the antlers fell
off, anywhere from November until May, but mostly in February and March.
Gettle began researching. She learned that antlers are the
fastest-growing tissue in the animal world and that deer discard their
antlers in winter, when they no longer are needed to attract does and
would only drain body energy in the lean months ahead.
She learned that such factors as the buck's health and harsh weather
determine when antlers fall off. Each side can drop almost
simultaneously, but usually they fall off not at the same time but
within three days of each other.
She learned that bucks most often shed their antlers not in the deep
woods but in open areas.
Most of this she picked up from a book, "Shed Hunting: A Guide to
Finding White-tailed Deer Antlers,'' by Joe Shead.
So immersed was Gettle by now that she tracked down the
Wisconsin-native Shead and journeyed to Minnesota where he acted as a
mentor on a several-day shed hunt.
In 2009, Gettle found a remarkable 23 antlers around here.
Now a seasoned veteran, she spends late fall and early winter
watching deer on game lands and private farms in Lancaster and Lebanon
counties to see where they appear and go.
She's careful not to spook deer from staging areas, places they
gather before entering woods or fields.
When she begins her searches in late January or early February --
usually alone -- she starts in neutral areas where deer are not likely
to be during daytime. Places like fields, fence rows and fingers of
woods that jut out into fields.
In early March, she cautiously begins searches slightly into the
woods, looking behind fence lines and along creeks, but still avoiding
bedding and staging areas.
Not until mid-March, when the bucks are likely to have shed their
racks, does she venture into staging areas.
She moves slowly and her eyes are trained to look for the tips of
antlers, not the entire rack, because much of the bone may be buried in
grasses, leaves or crops.
Her hotspots for finding sheds include islands and lone trees in the
middle of fields, standing water in fields, the lines where different
crops intersect, south-facing areas and near buck rubs.
She'll continue the search into April, when the greening landscape
swallows antlers.
"The only thing I don't like about shed hunting is coming home with
20 ticks at the end of the day,'' she says.
She's driven by the thought that here is a buck that eluded hunters
the whole hunting season and now she is the only one to find him, or
least his antlers.
"If someone would have told me when I found my first antler that shed
hunting would become more important to me than all other hunting
combined, I would have laughed at them,'' says the freckle-faced Gettle,
who works as a machine operator at the Pepperidge Farm plant in East
Cocalico Township.
Her dedication and pursuit of knowledge to master her hobby is paying
dividends. She's already found 35 antlers, only two of which are matched
sets.
Among the feathers in her cap are six sheds found in one evening. One
of her most exciting finds was a strange-shaped spike, then, the next
year finding the same side from the same buck, its antler still
retaining the crescent-moon curl but now with three points.
Her largest rack, the right half of what was a monster eight-pointer,
she found within sight of a road in a corn field on game lands near
Middle Creek. It was in the middle of a field and she first dismissed it
as the rim of a bicycle wheel. When she got closer and realized what it
was, "I couldn't breathe.''
The allure of locating the other half, or "soul mate'' as Gettle
calls it, gave her sleepless nights.
"It would drive me crazy enough to get out of bed and drive over to
the spot just to walk around looking for the other side,'' she confides.
She spent two weeks looking for the other half, walking every single
corn row. "It still wonders me where it is,'' she says.
One of the beauties of shed antler hunting is Gettle can go anytime
she feels like it and stay as little or long as she wants. There are no
limits on collecting antlers and she's outdoors at a time of year when
she usually has the landscape to herself.
She learns what bucks are likely to be around the following hunting
season, where they travel and what kinds of habitat and foods they seek
out.
Shed antler hunting is getting bigger all the time. There now is an
organization, the North American Shed Hunters Club
(http://shedantlers.org ) that keeps track of shed records. Massive
whitetail sheds fetch a pretty penny and you can even buy a shed-hunting
dog.
Chances are, though, that Gettle's shed pile will continue to grow,
perhaps to arch-like proportions like the ones you see at the entrances
to Western ranches.
"Shed hunting does something to a hunter's soul that nothing else
can,'' she says. "It's just that special.''
Information from: Intelligencer Journal,
http://www.lancasteronline.com/pages/paper/sundaynews/
Maine fur-free first lady lauded
By The Associated Press
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - An animal rights group is saluting Maine's
first lady for going fur-free--no matter how harsh the state's winters
may be.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says it surveyed
governors' wives asking if they wear fur.
PETA says Karen Baldacci, wife of Gov. John Baldacci, was the first
to respond with a "no.'' Mrs. Baldacci said she hardly even wears the
faux fur she owns.
Her answer earned the first lady a box of chocolates from PETA. The
group says first ladies in Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon,
Utah and Wisconsin also are fur-free.
PETA says it isn't surprised by Mrs. Baldacci's stance. The Animal
Legal Defense Fund recently ranked Maine as one of the worst states for
animal abusers because of its tough anticruelty laws.
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