Burrito recall; Bibby gets degree; Ted Bundy's spooky home
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Odd and interesting news from around the West.
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Former NBA star Mike Bibby just got his college diploma.
UNLV announced Saturday that the 39-year-old basketball great has now earned a bachelor of arts degree in multidisciplinary studies from the College of Liberal Arts.
The point guard was a stand out when he helped the University of Arizona win the 1997 NCAA Championship title.
But he left school early to play in the NBA, including for the Vancouver Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings, Atlanta Hawks, Washington Wizards, Miami Heat and New York Knicks.
Bibby, who now lives and coaches high school basketball in the Phoenix area, said he wanted to get his degree to coach at the college and pro level.
He also said he did it to keep a promise to his mother, calling the graduation a Mother's Day present.
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LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — More than 252,000 pounds of frozen burritos are being recalled because of possible listeria contamination.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Saturday announced the Green Chile Food Co. recall for various frozen burritos containing meat and poultry, after a routine sample of a beef and potato burrito found a problem.
The Las Cruces, New Mexico company made and packaged the ready-to-eat foods between March 8 and May 10, and the products have the establishment number listed as EST. 21740.
The burritos were sent to sellers in California, Illinois, Oregon, and South Dakota.
Though there aren't any confirmed reports of people getting sick eating the burritos, the USDA cautions that listeria can cause serious illness, particularly among those who are elderly, pregnant, newborn or suffering from weak immune systems.
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JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A Native American advocacy group is asking Wyoming wildlife managers for a ban on killing wolves along a wide swath of land bordering Yellowstone National Park.
A request sent to the Wyoming Fish and Game Department seeks a temporary suspension of wolf hunting altogether and a 31-mile no-hunting "sacred resource protection safety zone" along the outskirts of the 2.2 million-acre park in northwest Wyoming.
Protect the Wolves Director Roger Dobson told the Jackson Hole News & Guide (http://bit.ly/2pHcH3P) that Wyoming's insistence on allowing unregulated hunting of wolves outside areas where wolves are still protected was a motivation for approaching the state.
"It goes to show that Wyoming is not capable of managing their resources in the best interest of the public," said Dobson, a member of the Pacific Northwest's Cowlitz Indian Tribe. "They're mandated under the Indian trust and public trust to manage our resources in the best interest of the public. It's further mandated that they do not allow special-interest groups to suggest or affect policy change."
Dobson's contention is that Wyoming's wolf management plan was a concession to the livestock lobby that stands to benefit, and thus an illegal betrayal of the public trust.
Protect the Wolves has no staff in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, but Dobson said it has "tribal endorsements" all over North America.
A March court decision once again turned wolves into a state-managed species, following a 2 1/2-year stint as a federally protected threatened species.
In Wyoming, wolves remain protected in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. The state has a tightly regulated hunting season in the adjoining greater Yellowstone area. But elsewhere in Wyoming, where wolves aren't nearly as numerous, wolves can be shot on sight and without limit.
Game and Fish has begun planning for a fall hunt in the managed portion of the state, called the "trophy game area." The intent of the hunt is to cut the wolf population in the that area by 50 to 160 animals, close to the lowest level possible that ensures there will be legally adequate numbers of breeding pairs.
A meeting on the wolf-hunting regulations is scheduled for May 22.
It's through the season-setting process that Dobson seeks to amend Wyoming's wolf-hunting regulations. The request likely would require redrawing the lines on hunt units that have been in place for years.
If the effort fails, Dobson said he won't rule out suing the state of Wyoming.
Renny MacKay, Game and Fish's statewide spokesman, said that altering hunt units to create a no-hunting buffer along Yellowstone's periphery may be difficult to achieve at this time.
"I think people could give us feedback on that," MacKay said, "but I don't know if that could be done at this point."
The only Native American territory in Wyoming's portion of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Wind River Indian Reservation, is more than 30 miles from the park boundary.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's 2017 census found nine wolves on the reservation, where the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes have jurisdiction over the species.
There are about 400 wolves in Wyoming.
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Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com
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PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona homeowner is replacing his middle finger painting with a graffiti-themed mural.
Peoria homeowner Ernie Leas tells KTVK-TV (http://bit.ly/2pwrVx4 ) that he made the painting in response to a 20-year-old feud with neighbors. Leas says his neighbors have made an excessive amount of police calls about him. The painting was meant to show his displeasure for his bothersome neighbors. Neighbors say Leas has been known to keep an unused ice cream truck in front of his home and post yellow caution tape around his property.
They say they worry his actions will cause the value of their property to go down.
Leas' new mural features the face of a Joker, which one neighbor finds frightening.
Peoria officials have said Leas is free to decorate his private property however he'd like.
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Information from: KTVK-TV, http://www.azfamily.com/
- By KIRK MITCHELL Denver Post
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CANON CITY, Colo. (AP) — Until February, Andrew Stiern could only speak with his girlfriend on a phone in a prison day hall while 10 other inmates listened in and waited impatiently in line behind him.
Now the 29-year-old inmate can kick back in the limited privacy of his cell at Four Mile Correctional Center in Canon City and call his girl on a new computer tablet anytime between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. He can also use the same device to listen to his favorite tunes from a streaming cache of 12 million songs, read books or play video games to his heart's content.
About 8,000 Colorado inmates, including Stiern, are part of a pilot program for Inspire, a program of GLT Corp. that expects to eventually deliver tablets to more than 18,000 inmates in all 20 private and public prisons in Colorado and 1.8 million people jailed across the U.S. Inspire is designed to give inmates access to a wide range of media, including educational programming, but also creates a new revenue stream for GTL, which specializes in inmate telecommunications and payment systems.
Inmates can use the wireless handheld devices when they are not involved in other prison programming, such as GED classes or doing jobs including milking cows in the prison dairy.
"It's great. I'm kind of the tablet rep guy," Stiern said while standing in his cell in the west wing of C-Pod, a unit where he and fellow inmates train companion dogs. "When you are in prison, you are cut off from the outside world. You want your mind to be focused on positive things. It's kind of an escape from this world. These tabs have become a new piece of life in here."
Colorado is the first state to roll out the Inspire program across all its prisons. Smaller programs were tested in county jails in Arizona and California.
Colorado Department of Corrections directors have embraced the Inspire inmate tablet program, believing that it will reduce friction between rival gangs vying for control of wall phones, occupy inmates who have a lot of time on their hands and eventually allow them to access vocational and educational programming.
Not everyone is sold on the idea. Correctional officers and representatives of victims groups have expressed concerns that criminals will find a way to use the tablets to commit new crimes and that they shouldn't be showered with such luxuries.
"I'm a little stunned. They are not there to be catered to and offered all the comforts of home," said Rob Wells, president of Families of Victims of Homicide and Missing Persons. His brother, Sid Wells, was murdered in 1983. "I'm not pleased with it. Some of them are gang members and have been involved in some pretty nasty stuff. They shouldn't be given something that will give them an opportunity to continue their criminal enterprises in prison. How are they going to monitor this?"
Correctional officers, too, were concerned the tablets could make it easier for members of gangs to communicate to the outside world.
"All of us had our reservations at first. Are we going to be more vulnerable because of this technology? There was a lot of old school mentality," said Ryan Flores, who has worked in Colorado corrections for 21 years.
Four Mile's associate warden, Doug Diedrich, said during his 28 years in corrections there has existed an imperative to tightly control the use of electronic devices. Security is the number one issue at prison, he said, but he is convinced that because every text message and phone call is monitored, the Inspire system is no more vulnerable than what already exists.
But how could giving away $270 million worth of tablets to the nation's criminals possibly be profitable?
In a conference call, Brian Peters, GTL's executive director of inmate applications and hardware, reluctantly acknowledged GTL's profit motive. GTL sells inmates subscriptions to the streaming database, which includes an eBook library of thousands of volumes.
Stiern said he paid $6.59 for a two-month subscription to music and games. GTL also charges inmates, their friends and family for each call and text they exchange. Text messages are 25 cents and a 20-minute call runs $2 to $3, Stiern said.
"We don't know how profitable this will be," Peters said, "but we know we're leading the charge and we'll know first."
Peters focused on the rehabilitative potential of putting a powerful electronic tool into the hands of inmates.
Colorado inmates will be able to access vocational and educational programming on their tablets, he said. One tablet upgrade will provide live video tutoring by licensed plumbers or electricians who will be able to answer inmate questions about their preferred tools and techniques.
"Education is the single most important factor in preventing recidivism," Peters said.
The tablets also replace a mountain of pen-and-paper prison communications. They enable inmates to quickly order a Snickers bar from the commissary, file a grievance about high-carbohydrate prison food, notify medical staff in the prison clinic about hepatitis C symptoms or sign up for prison education programs.
Just having the tablet is a privilege already shown to change inmate behavior, said Turner Nashe, GTL's senior vice president over educational services.
In his cell on a May afternoon, Stiern demonstrated how Murphy, the black Lab/shepherd mix he is training, says hello by raising his left paw. Stiern — serving six years for criminal mischief and variety of parole violations — said he is careful about obeying prison rules so he won't lose the companionship of Murphy. Likewise the threat of losing tablet privileges is a powerful incentive to toe the line. No one wants to lose their computer for 30 days, he said.
The tablets affect morale, Stiern said. He demonstrated for journalists how he set up a matrix of icons of his favorite music artists and computer games on a tablet screen. He offered a reporter his ear buds so he could hear a song from Kelsea Ballerini's "The First Time" album. "It's very good quality, isn't it?" he said. Listening to music is a great stress reliever, he said.
Diedrich said in the months since the tablets were distributed at Four Mile he has noticed a decrease in tensions that previously arose over access to the wall phone in the day hall.
Stiern says all the inmates know a correctional officer is always listening in on your phone conversations or reading text messages that can be up to 2,000 characters. "You don't say stupid stuff," he said.
Nashe said in 2009, when GTL began talking to prison staff about their tablet idea, people were skeptical. "They laughed at us. They thought it was a nice idea but that it was pie in the sky."
Diedrich said GTL's system allows prisons to monitor every text or phone call like they always have. In fact, it's even easier to monitor electronic messages than letters, he said. Employees working in the prison mail room can do bulk scans for gang names, prison slang for drugs and contraband and clandestine activities, like gang leaders ordering beat downs and hits, he said.
Colorado staff members will screen 2,000 text messages a day before allowing them to go to their intended recipients. The tablets are programmed so that inmates can't communicate with fellow gang members across the prison system, Diedrich said.
Inspire is still early in its implementation buts so far haven't been any reported instances of abuse of the tablets at Four Mile, he said.
The tablets aren't connected to the internet, so inmates don't have an opportunity to troll pornography websites or play violent video games.
"These are games I allow my 4-year-old to play," Peters said. "The most violent game is, like, 'Angry Birds.' "
Flores, the corrections officer, said some inmates have been in prison for decades and don't even know how to use a cellphone.
"People have to realize that inmates here are going to get out of prison," Flores said. "This allows offenders to read literature and enhances their programming opportunities."
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Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com
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TOMBSTONE, Ariz. (AP) — Val Kilmer, who famously played Doc Holliday in the movie "Tombstone," is making plans to visit the Arizona Old West town this summer as part of a festival that pays tribute to the gunfighter.
Kilmer announced he would be coming to Arizona in August on Facebook, the Sierra Vista Herald reported Thursday (http://bit.ly/2pwaBIK). The visit is part of the Tombstone Lions Club and Tombstone Mustachery's first Doc Holli-Days event taking place Aug. 12 and 13.
In the movie, the character is based off of John Henry "Doc" Holliday, a dentist known for his part in the legendary shootout at O.K. Corral.
The event is still in the planning stages, Tombstone Mustachery co-owner Sherry Rudd said. "He kind of let the cat out of the bag," she said, laughing.
Rudd and her husband, Kevin, got the chance to meet Kilmer after the "Cinema Twain" show in Wickenburg last December. Kilmer told the couple of his ideas to sell Doc-inspired artwork in the area, and the group kept in contact.
Ideas for the event took shape in March. By April, Kilmer posted on Facebook that he would be coming.
"It's been a little crazy for us," Kevin said. "But it's definitely going to be fun."
Event officials have been considered ideas such as a look-a-like contest, poker tournament, a parade, a peach-pie eating contest honoring Holliday's Georgia roots and an early birthday party for the character who was born Aug. 14.
Kilmer may also be available for meet-and-greets, officials said.
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Information from: Sierra Vista Herald, http://www.svherald.com
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A gigantic moving day at Los Angeles International Airport has gone off without a hitch.
The airport says seven airlines switched terminals overnight, while Delta Air Lines completed the first of three days of moving operations.
Several other airlines are moving Sunday.
The relocation involves moving planes, transporting hundreds of computers and thousands of boxes, relocating furniture and changing signs.
In all, 15 airlines are swapping terminals while others are switching ticket counters within terminals. The relocations will continue into Wednesday morning.
Shuttle buses and volunteer guides in neon green are helping travelers find the right terminals and only minor problems have been reported.
The shuffle was prompted by Delta's move and that airline is picking up the costs.
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GREAT FALLS, Montana (AP) — A Montana beekeeper has recovered hives that were stolen from him in California, thanks to an agricultural sting operation.
Lloyd Cunniff of Choteau reported 488 hives stolen in January, after he had transported them to California for the almond pollination season.
A tip led Fresno County authorities to find stolen hives worth $170,000 in a rented bee nursery space, a cow pasture and hidden in a drainage along a freeway.
Fresno County Detective Anders Solis, member of the county's agriculture crimes task force, says there were 10 victims in seven California counties in all.
The Great Falls Tribune reports (http://gftrib.com/2pvUzhM ) Cunniff got most of his bees back last Sunday. He says he is keeping the recovered hives in a separate field in case they are infected with disease or mites.
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Information from: Great Falls Tribune, http://www.greatfallstribune.com
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MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man who made threats to kill former President Barack Obama over social media will serve five years in federal prison.
The Mail Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/2pvS6UJ ) Friday that U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane sentenced 62-year-old John Roos of Medford to 63 months in prison.
Roos was also sentenced to three years of post-prison supervision upon his release.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice news release, Roos pleaded guilty to charges related to the threats and other charges for possession of an unregistered explosive device.
Roos said in court that he threatened to kill Obama and the former first family on Twitter. According the release, Roos has also posted on Facebook threats to snipe FBI agents with hunting rifles.
Roos has said the threats were not serious.
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Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/
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POST FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Police in northern Idaho say they are investigating after a student was accused of putting laxatives in homemade brownies and distributing them to his classmates.
Students at River City Middle School in Post Falls complained of sickness and headaches last month after eating brownies given to them by a fellow classmate — who has not been identified. Several students told police they paid for the brownies because they thought the brownies contained marijuana.
According to the police report, the student who brought the brownies told his probation officer that the laxative-laced dessert was supposed to be a prank. He denied promising anyone that the brownies had marijuana in them.
The student was suspended from school for five day and faces possible other charges.
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SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Former baseball star Doug DeCinces was convicted Friday of insider trading for a stock buy that earned him more than $1 million.
The ex-Baltimore Orioles and California Angels third baseman was convicted of 14 federal charges and could face decades in prison.
Jurors deadlocked on 18 other charges and a judge declared a mistrial for those counts, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
Ken Julian, an attorney for DeCinces, said he planned to ask for a new trial.
"Obviously, this is a disappointment for everybody involved," Julian told the Orange County Register (http://bit.ly/2pHlwdB). "This is not the end."
DeCinces was tipped off in 2009 that a Santa Ana-based medical device firm, Advanced Medical Optics, was going to be sold. The information came from the company CEO, James Mazzo, who was DeCinces' neighbor in Laguna Beach, California, prosecutors argued.
DeCinces bought more than 90,000 shares in the company days before Abbott Laboratories bought the firm, and he sold the shares for a profit of about $1.3 million, prosecutors said.
Fourteen other people made another $1.3 million after DeCinces passed on the tip to friends and family members, prosecutors alleged.
One friend, David Parker, 65, of Provo, Utah, was convicted of three counts on Friday. But the jury deadlocked in Mazzo's case, and a mistrial was declared. However, Mazzo still could face a retrial on 26 insider trading counts.
DeCinces, 66, and Parker will remain free until they are sentenced. A hearing date was not immediately set.
At the time of the merger, Advanced Medical Optics had seen its stock price plunge from more than $30 per share to under $10 in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street crash. It more than doubled after the merger was announced.
"Even though everyone else was losing, they won," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer L. Waier said in closing arguments on Tuesday. "They won big. They won because they knew tomorrow's news today."
DeCinces even called his broker while his father lay dying in the hospital, prosecutors said.
The defense denied the allegations and accused the government of conducting a biased and shoddy investigation.
Prosecutors offered more than two dozen witnesses during the two-month trial, but defense lawyers argued none of them directly implicated DeCinces or his co-defendants.
DeCinces earlier faced civil charges of insider trading. He settled that case in 2011 by agreeing to pay $2.5 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
DeCinces spent 15 years in the major leagues, recording 1,505 hits and 237 home runs. He played for the Orioles from 1973 to 1982, when he was traded to the Angels. He was on the American League All-Star team in 1983.
The Angels released DeCinces in 1987, and he played four games for the St. Louis Cardinals that season. The next year he played for Tokyo's Yakult Swallows in Japan. But he didn't finish the season because of back problems and then retired.
- By LYNN THOMPSON Seattle Times
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BELLEVUE, Wash. (AP) — Moses Shiong didn't feel supported at home. His parents, Hmong refugees from Laos, didn't seem to understand their American son. He said they were disappointed that he wasn't a traditional first son, strong, showing no weakness. His mentors said the parents didn't seem to notice him withdrawing, locking himself in his room to cry.
By his sophomore year of high school he was skipping first-period English, too exhausted mentally and emotionally, he said, from arguments at home. When his father had a heart attack and could no longer work, Shiong blamed himself and doubled his hours at a Bellevue pizza restaurant to help his family financially.
Shiong, 17, said he had suicidal thoughts, but knew he couldn't abandon his sister, who was five years younger.
"I wanted her to have a better future. That was a huge motivation for me," he said.
Last month, Shiong stood beside Gov. Jay Inslee, honored as one of the 13 finalists for the state Boys & Girls Youth of the Year Award, given to the high-school senior who most embodies the club's values of leadership, service, academic excellence and healthy lifestyles.
Shiong credits the turnaround in his life to the staff at the Bellevue Boys & Girls Club, where he'd attended after-school programs since he was in kindergarten. At the club, he said, he found adults willing to listen and offer support.
One, Masao Yamada, director of the club's Keystone Leadership Program for high-school students, became a father figure to him, counseling him on how to avoid conflicts at home and offering him opportunities to volunteer, first within the club and then in the community.
Shiong responded by holding every office in the leadership group, from treasurer to president. He volunteered to work with numerous nonprofit organizations, clearing invasive species for EarthCorps, helping shoppers at the local food bank, passing out bottles of water to participants in walk-a-thons and at the Big Climb at the Columbia Tower.
He joined club outings to college campuses in the state and for the first time, he said, his own future began to open up. The club also took the high-school students to meet with local business leaders. They learned about the companies, about the leaders' own paths to achievement and the role mentors had played in their lives.
Yamada took Shiong and another student to Atlanta for a Boys & Girls Club seminar in poetry and the spoken word. In the end, he went from flunking English to finding an outlet for his feelings through writing.
"He more than just helped me," Shiong said of his mentor. "No matter what he was doing, he always had time for me. He allowed me to express myself."
A LIFE TRANSFORMED
In the process, Yamada said, the discouraged, introverted boy blossomed into a young man willing to extend himself to help others.
At the governor's mansion in Olympia, Inslee presented Shiong with the Governor's Award for Community Service, in recognition of the more than 750 volunteer hours he'd logged over the previous three years.
The next night, the 13 finalists presented their own stories to an audience of more than 200 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle. Scanning the program, Shiong said his stomach knotted up. The finalists went in alphabetical order by club. Bellevue was first.
He said he took a deep breath, lifted the microphone off the podium and started moving across the stage, finding the rhythm in his words.
The boy who had trouble speaking up for himself performed a spoken-word poem of his journey from the child who was rarely comforted or heard, to finding protection among the "armored knights" of the Boys & Girls Club staff.
"I killed it!" he said.
He didn't win, but at the end of the ceremony, he was surrounded by people from the audience who congratulated him on his performance.
"I never thought I could speak in front of so many people," he said.
Following his June graduation, Shiong plans to attend Bellevue College so he can remain close to home and support his sister. After two years, he said, he'd like to transfer to a four-year university and earn a degree in education or counseling.
Having served in every position on his club's leadership team, he now holds the title of club ambassador. He testified in Olympia before a legislative committee on a bill to support mentorship programs. In the coming weeks, he will introduce the club's programs and goals to the Bellevue City Council, the Bellevue Rotary Club and the Bellevue School Board.
"It's impressive, really impressive," said Ryan Scott, vice president of Bellevue Boys & Girls Club. "We're really proud that he can represent us."
Shiong also started a new program at the club called "Be Heard," with a goal of reaching out to the quiet kids who might lack the confidence to speak out themselves.
"Maybe they think they're not important. Maybe they haven't gotten the opportunity to express themselves. We want to tell them, 'You're important. We need you,'?" Shiong said.
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Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com
- By STACIA GLENN The News Tribune
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TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Unexplainable things happened in the Tacoma house where serial killer Ted Bundy grew up.
So many things, in fact, that a contractor hired to remodel the home penciled Bible scriptures on the walls and brought in two pastors to bless the house.
"I'm not one to believe a lot of this stuff, but this house made me a believer," said Casey Clopton, the contractor.
A cry for help appeared on a window as crew members worked in the basement. Heavy furniture wedged into a wall toppled over. Doors and cabinets seemed to open themselves.
It all started in September, when David Truong bought the 1,400-square-foot home with plans to redo and flip it.
He didn't research its history, so he didn't know the local lore or who had lived there.
The little blue house was built in 1946, the same year Bundy was born in Vermont. The Bundy family moved into the home in 1955, records show.
Louise Bundy was no longer living there in 1989, when her 42-year-old son was executed in Florida after being convicted of killing two sorority sisters and a 12-year-old girl.
Investigators linked him to at least 30 slayings, though they believe there were dozens more. His killing spree started in 1974 in Washington and continued for years across 11 states.
'THEY WERE A REALLY NICE FAMILY'
Bundy was 9 when his family moved into the four-bedroom, 1 1/2-bathroom house. Neighbors recall him having a bedroom on the ground floor, though at least one record indicates his room was at the foot of the stairs in the basement.
He lived there with his mother, stepfather and four siblings.
"I don't ever remember seeing Ted," said Hope Murry, a neighbor who grew up a few houses down and later bought her childhood home.
She recalls playing with Bundy's younger sisters and Louise Bundy babysitting her. Once, she went to their house but was told to stay out of Ted's bedroom because he had the measles.
"They were a really nice family," Murry said.
Bundy insisted he grew up in "a wonderful home with two dedicated and loving parents."
Louise Bundy was a staunch defender of her eldest son and long insisted he was innocent. Her stance softened after he made several death-row confessions.
In his final interview with a psychologist just before he was executed, Bundy said his family regularly attended church and believed his violence stemmed from an obsession with pornography that fueled dark fantasies.
Some believe Bundy started killing when he was 14, and that Ann Marie Burr, an 8-year-old girl abducted from her North End home in August 1961, was his first victim.
Bundy denied it in a letter to the girl's mother, written after he was imprisoned in Florida and named as a suspect in Burr's disappearance.
Louise Bundy said back then she was sure he didn't commit any crimes while living under her roof. And DNA testing done in 2011 was unable to link Bundy to the missing girl.
He is, however, still listed as a suspect in the case because detectives could not clear him.
Despite Bundy being one of the most notorious serial killers, there is no evidence he committed any crimes in his childhood home.
That doesn't stop some neighbors, and now the contractors, from believing there's something spooky about the house.
'HELP ME' AND 'LEAVE'
Clopton, the contractor, first visited the house after he was hired in October. He took along his 11-year-old daughter, who sometimes goes with him and takes dictated notes from her dad about the work that needs to be done.
"My daughter started crying," Copton said. "She said she felt weird. She didn't like it there."
She refused to be alone in the house and was so uncomfortable they quickly left.
Clopton returned the next week with a demolition crew. One crew member echoed the sentiment that the house didn't feel right.
Then things started happening, things Clopton kept dismissing as pranks among the crew.
There was the time they re-entered the house — which had been locked — and every door, every cabinet drawer — was open.
Or the time the workers were cleaning up the flooded basement and spotted the words "Help me" written on the glass. A screwed-on screen protector would have made it difficult for someone outside to write it, Clopton said.
A heavy dresser inset in the upstairs hallway wall somehow pulled itself out and landed face-down on the floor while the crew was downstairs.
Workers said it takes at least one strong man to pull it out and there was no way it could have fallen on its own.
"Periodically, throughout the course of the job, we had weird things keep happening," Clopton said.
Cellphones and other electronics occasionally would get unplugged and immediately die. The word "Leave" was found written in sheet rock dust on a bedroom floor with no footprints around it.
Clopton eventually chatted with some of the neighbors about the odd occurrences, asking if there had been a rash of neighborhood break-ins.
That's when he learned Bundy once lived in the house.
Clopton passed the information along to Truong and James Pitts III, the real estate broker. Pitts said he was shocked but excited by the discovery because he has an interest in true crime.
"It was really eerie but really neat," he said. "We made sure to keep quiet initially because we weren't sure how people would react to knowing a serial killer lived there."
Although a handful of potential buyers asked Pitts about Bundy once calling the house home, he said the people who recently bought the house did not.
It's unclear whether the new owners are aware. They were unable to be reached for comment.
TWO PASTORS AND BLESSINGS
After Clopton found out the house's connection to a serial killer, he decided it was time to seek help. So he called a Puyallup pastor and asked him to bless the house.
Two pastors came out and went from room to room, reading scriptures and saying blessings.
They encouraged the crew to continue playing Christian music while they worked. They also suggested writing Bible verses on the walls, which the workers did.
The penciled writing can no longer be seen beneath the fresh paint, but Clopton hopes they will continue to offer protection.
"Everything in that house fought us, and I was kind of weird about it," he said. "But I go to church and I have God with me."
The house was completely redone with new paint, a bright yellow front door and renovated floors and ceilings. But the history remains.
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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Former NBA star Mike Bibby just got his college diploma.
UNLV announced Saturday that the 39-year-old basketball great has now earned a bachelor of arts degree in multidisciplinary studies from the College of Liberal Arts.
The point guard was a stand out when he helped the University of Arizona win the 1997 NCAA Championship title.
But he left school early to play in the NBA, including for the Vancouver Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings, Atlanta Hawks, Washington Wizards, Miami Heat and New York Knicks.
Bibby, who now lives and coaches high school basketball in the Phoenix area, said he wanted to get his degree to coach at the college and pro level.
He also said he did it to keep a promise to his mother, calling the graduation a Mother's Day present.
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — More than 252,000 pounds of frozen burritos are being recalled because of possible listeria contamination.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Saturday announced the Green Chile Food Co. recall for various frozen burritos containing meat and poultry, after a routine sample of a beef and potato burrito found a problem.
The Las Cruces, New Mexico company made and packaged the ready-to-eat foods between March 8 and May 10, and the products have the establishment number listed as EST. 21740.
The burritos were sent to sellers in California, Illinois, Oregon, and South Dakota.
Though there aren't any confirmed reports of people getting sick eating the burritos, the USDA cautions that listeria can cause serious illness, particularly among those who are elderly, pregnant, newborn or suffering from weak immune systems.
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A Native American advocacy group is asking Wyoming wildlife managers for a ban on killing wolves along a wide swath of land bordering Yellowstone National Park.
A request sent to the Wyoming Fish and Game Department seeks a temporary suspension of wolf hunting altogether and a 31-mile no-hunting "sacred resource protection safety zone" along the outskirts of the 2.2 million-acre park in northwest Wyoming.
Protect the Wolves Director Roger Dobson told the Jackson Hole News & Guide (http://bit.ly/2pHcH3P) that Wyoming's insistence on allowing unregulated hunting of wolves outside areas where wolves are still protected was a motivation for approaching the state.
"It goes to show that Wyoming is not capable of managing their resources in the best interest of the public," said Dobson, a member of the Pacific Northwest's Cowlitz Indian Tribe. "They're mandated under the Indian trust and public trust to manage our resources in the best interest of the public. It's further mandated that they do not allow special-interest groups to suggest or affect policy change."
Dobson's contention is that Wyoming's wolf management plan was a concession to the livestock lobby that stands to benefit, and thus an illegal betrayal of the public trust.
Protect the Wolves has no staff in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, but Dobson said it has "tribal endorsements" all over North America.
A March court decision once again turned wolves into a state-managed species, following a 2 1/2-year stint as a federally protected threatened species.
In Wyoming, wolves remain protected in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. The state has a tightly regulated hunting season in the adjoining greater Yellowstone area. But elsewhere in Wyoming, where wolves aren't nearly as numerous, wolves can be shot on sight and without limit.
Game and Fish has begun planning for a fall hunt in the managed portion of the state, called the "trophy game area." The intent of the hunt is to cut the wolf population in the that area by 50 to 160 animals, close to the lowest level possible that ensures there will be legally adequate numbers of breeding pairs.
A meeting on the wolf-hunting regulations is scheduled for May 22.
It's through the season-setting process that Dobson seeks to amend Wyoming's wolf-hunting regulations. The request likely would require redrawing the lines on hunt units that have been in place for years.
If the effort fails, Dobson said he won't rule out suing the state of Wyoming.
Renny MacKay, Game and Fish's statewide spokesman, said that altering hunt units to create a no-hunting buffer along Yellowstone's periphery may be difficult to achieve at this time.
"I think people could give us feedback on that," MacKay said, "but I don't know if that could be done at this point."
The only Native American territory in Wyoming's portion of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Wind River Indian Reservation, is more than 30 miles from the park boundary.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's 2017 census found nine wolves on the reservation, where the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes have jurisdiction over the species.
There are about 400 wolves in Wyoming.
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Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com
PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona homeowner is replacing his middle finger painting with a graffiti-themed mural.
Peoria homeowner Ernie Leas tells KTVK-TV (http://bit.ly/2pwrVx4 ) that he made the painting in response to a 20-year-old feud with neighbors. Leas says his neighbors have made an excessive amount of police calls about him. The painting was meant to show his displeasure for his bothersome neighbors. Neighbors say Leas has been known to keep an unused ice cream truck in front of his home and post yellow caution tape around his property.
They say they worry his actions will cause the value of their property to go down.
Leas' new mural features the face of a Joker, which one neighbor finds frightening.
Peoria officials have said Leas is free to decorate his private property however he'd like.
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Information from: KTVK-TV, http://www.azfamily.com/
- By KIRK MITCHELL Denver Post
CANON CITY, Colo. (AP) — Until February, Andrew Stiern could only speak with his girlfriend on a phone in a prison day hall while 10 other inmates listened in and waited impatiently in line behind him.
Now the 29-year-old inmate can kick back in the limited privacy of his cell at Four Mile Correctional Center in Canon City and call his girl on a new computer tablet anytime between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. He can also use the same device to listen to his favorite tunes from a streaming cache of 12 million songs, read books or play video games to his heart's content.
About 8,000 Colorado inmates, including Stiern, are part of a pilot program for Inspire, a program of GLT Corp. that expects to eventually deliver tablets to more than 18,000 inmates in all 20 private and public prisons in Colorado and 1.8 million people jailed across the U.S. Inspire is designed to give inmates access to a wide range of media, including educational programming, but also creates a new revenue stream for GTL, which specializes in inmate telecommunications and payment systems.
Inmates can use the wireless handheld devices when they are not involved in other prison programming, such as GED classes or doing jobs including milking cows in the prison dairy.
"It's great. I'm kind of the tablet rep guy," Stiern said while standing in his cell in the west wing of C-Pod, a unit where he and fellow inmates train companion dogs. "When you are in prison, you are cut off from the outside world. You want your mind to be focused on positive things. It's kind of an escape from this world. These tabs have become a new piece of life in here."
Colorado is the first state to roll out the Inspire program across all its prisons. Smaller programs were tested in county jails in Arizona and California.
Colorado Department of Corrections directors have embraced the Inspire inmate tablet program, believing that it will reduce friction between rival gangs vying for control of wall phones, occupy inmates who have a lot of time on their hands and eventually allow them to access vocational and educational programming.
Not everyone is sold on the idea. Correctional officers and representatives of victims groups have expressed concerns that criminals will find a way to use the tablets to commit new crimes and that they shouldn't be showered with such luxuries.
"I'm a little stunned. They are not there to be catered to and offered all the comforts of home," said Rob Wells, president of Families of Victims of Homicide and Missing Persons. His brother, Sid Wells, was murdered in 1983. "I'm not pleased with it. Some of them are gang members and have been involved in some pretty nasty stuff. They shouldn't be given something that will give them an opportunity to continue their criminal enterprises in prison. How are they going to monitor this?"
Correctional officers, too, were concerned the tablets could make it easier for members of gangs to communicate to the outside world.
"All of us had our reservations at first. Are we going to be more vulnerable because of this technology? There was a lot of old school mentality," said Ryan Flores, who has worked in Colorado corrections for 21 years.
Four Mile's associate warden, Doug Diedrich, said during his 28 years in corrections there has existed an imperative to tightly control the use of electronic devices. Security is the number one issue at prison, he said, but he is convinced that because every text message and phone call is monitored, the Inspire system is no more vulnerable than what already exists.
But how could giving away $270 million worth of tablets to the nation's criminals possibly be profitable?
In a conference call, Brian Peters, GTL's executive director of inmate applications and hardware, reluctantly acknowledged GTL's profit motive. GTL sells inmates subscriptions to the streaming database, which includes an eBook library of thousands of volumes.
Stiern said he paid $6.59 for a two-month subscription to music and games. GTL also charges inmates, their friends and family for each call and text they exchange. Text messages are 25 cents and a 20-minute call runs $2 to $3, Stiern said.
"We don't know how profitable this will be," Peters said, "but we know we're leading the charge and we'll know first."
Peters focused on the rehabilitative potential of putting a powerful electronic tool into the hands of inmates.
Colorado inmates will be able to access vocational and educational programming on their tablets, he said. One tablet upgrade will provide live video tutoring by licensed plumbers or electricians who will be able to answer inmate questions about their preferred tools and techniques.
"Education is the single most important factor in preventing recidivism," Peters said.
The tablets also replace a mountain of pen-and-paper prison communications. They enable inmates to quickly order a Snickers bar from the commissary, file a grievance about high-carbohydrate prison food, notify medical staff in the prison clinic about hepatitis C symptoms or sign up for prison education programs.
Just having the tablet is a privilege already shown to change inmate behavior, said Turner Nashe, GTL's senior vice president over educational services.
In his cell on a May afternoon, Stiern demonstrated how Murphy, the black Lab/shepherd mix he is training, says hello by raising his left paw. Stiern — serving six years for criminal mischief and variety of parole violations — said he is careful about obeying prison rules so he won't lose the companionship of Murphy. Likewise the threat of losing tablet privileges is a powerful incentive to toe the line. No one wants to lose their computer for 30 days, he said.
The tablets affect morale, Stiern said. He demonstrated for journalists how he set up a matrix of icons of his favorite music artists and computer games on a tablet screen. He offered a reporter his ear buds so he could hear a song from Kelsea Ballerini's "The First Time" album. "It's very good quality, isn't it?" he said. Listening to music is a great stress reliever, he said.
Diedrich said in the months since the tablets were distributed at Four Mile he has noticed a decrease in tensions that previously arose over access to the wall phone in the day hall.
Stiern says all the inmates know a correctional officer is always listening in on your phone conversations or reading text messages that can be up to 2,000 characters. "You don't say stupid stuff," he said.
Nashe said in 2009, when GTL began talking to prison staff about their tablet idea, people were skeptical. "They laughed at us. They thought it was a nice idea but that it was pie in the sky."
Diedrich said GTL's system allows prisons to monitor every text or phone call like they always have. In fact, it's even easier to monitor electronic messages than letters, he said. Employees working in the prison mail room can do bulk scans for gang names, prison slang for drugs and contraband and clandestine activities, like gang leaders ordering beat downs and hits, he said.
Colorado staff members will screen 2,000 text messages a day before allowing them to go to their intended recipients. The tablets are programmed so that inmates can't communicate with fellow gang members across the prison system, Diedrich said.
Inspire is still early in its implementation buts so far haven't been any reported instances of abuse of the tablets at Four Mile, he said.
The tablets aren't connected to the internet, so inmates don't have an opportunity to troll pornography websites or play violent video games.
"These are games I allow my 4-year-old to play," Peters said. "The most violent game is, like, 'Angry Birds.' "
Flores, the corrections officer, said some inmates have been in prison for decades and don't even know how to use a cellphone.
"People have to realize that inmates here are going to get out of prison," Flores said. "This allows offenders to read literature and enhances their programming opportunities."
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Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com
TOMBSTONE, Ariz. (AP) — Val Kilmer, who famously played Doc Holliday in the movie "Tombstone," is making plans to visit the Arizona Old West town this summer as part of a festival that pays tribute to the gunfighter.
Kilmer announced he would be coming to Arizona in August on Facebook, the Sierra Vista Herald reported Thursday (http://bit.ly/2pwaBIK). The visit is part of the Tombstone Lions Club and Tombstone Mustachery's first Doc Holli-Days event taking place Aug. 12 and 13.
In the movie, the character is based off of John Henry "Doc" Holliday, a dentist known for his part in the legendary shootout at O.K. Corral.
The event is still in the planning stages, Tombstone Mustachery co-owner Sherry Rudd said. "He kind of let the cat out of the bag," she said, laughing.
Rudd and her husband, Kevin, got the chance to meet Kilmer after the "Cinema Twain" show in Wickenburg last December. Kilmer told the couple of his ideas to sell Doc-inspired artwork in the area, and the group kept in contact.
Ideas for the event took shape in March. By April, Kilmer posted on Facebook that he would be coming.
"It's been a little crazy for us," Kevin said. "But it's definitely going to be fun."
Event officials have been considered ideas such as a look-a-like contest, poker tournament, a parade, a peach-pie eating contest honoring Holliday's Georgia roots and an early birthday party for the character who was born Aug. 14.
Kilmer may also be available for meet-and-greets, officials said.
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Information from: Sierra Vista Herald, http://www.svherald.com
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A gigantic moving day at Los Angeles International Airport has gone off without a hitch.
The airport says seven airlines switched terminals overnight, while Delta Air Lines completed the first of three days of moving operations.
Several other airlines are moving Sunday.
The relocation involves moving planes, transporting hundreds of computers and thousands of boxes, relocating furniture and changing signs.
In all, 15 airlines are swapping terminals while others are switching ticket counters within terminals. The relocations will continue into Wednesday morning.
Shuttle buses and volunteer guides in neon green are helping travelers find the right terminals and only minor problems have been reported.
The shuffle was prompted by Delta's move and that airline is picking up the costs.
GREAT FALLS, Montana (AP) — A Montana beekeeper has recovered hives that were stolen from him in California, thanks to an agricultural sting operation.
Lloyd Cunniff of Choteau reported 488 hives stolen in January, after he had transported them to California for the almond pollination season.
A tip led Fresno County authorities to find stolen hives worth $170,000 in a rented bee nursery space, a cow pasture and hidden in a drainage along a freeway.
Fresno County Detective Anders Solis, member of the county's agriculture crimes task force, says there were 10 victims in seven California counties in all.
The Great Falls Tribune reports (http://gftrib.com/2pvUzhM ) Cunniff got most of his bees back last Sunday. He says he is keeping the recovered hives in a separate field in case they are infected with disease or mites.
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Information from: Great Falls Tribune, http://www.greatfallstribune.com
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man who made threats to kill former President Barack Obama over social media will serve five years in federal prison.
The Mail Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/2pvS6UJ ) Friday that U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane sentenced 62-year-old John Roos of Medford to 63 months in prison.
Roos was also sentenced to three years of post-prison supervision upon his release.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice news release, Roos pleaded guilty to charges related to the threats and other charges for possession of an unregistered explosive device.
Roos said in court that he threatened to kill Obama and the former first family on Twitter. According the release, Roos has also posted on Facebook threats to snipe FBI agents with hunting rifles.
Roos has said the threats were not serious.
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Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/
POST FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Police in northern Idaho say they are investigating after a student was accused of putting laxatives in homemade brownies and distributing them to his classmates.
Students at River City Middle School in Post Falls complained of sickness and headaches last month after eating brownies given to them by a fellow classmate — who has not been identified. Several students told police they paid for the brownies because they thought the brownies contained marijuana.
According to the police report, the student who brought the brownies told his probation officer that the laxative-laced dessert was supposed to be a prank. He denied promising anyone that the brownies had marijuana in them.
The student was suspended from school for five day and faces possible other charges.
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Former baseball star Doug DeCinces was convicted Friday of insider trading for a stock buy that earned him more than $1 million.
The ex-Baltimore Orioles and California Angels third baseman was convicted of 14 federal charges and could face decades in prison.
Jurors deadlocked on 18 other charges and a judge declared a mistrial for those counts, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
Ken Julian, an attorney for DeCinces, said he planned to ask for a new trial.
"Obviously, this is a disappointment for everybody involved," Julian told the Orange County Register (http://bit.ly/2pHlwdB). "This is not the end."
DeCinces was tipped off in 2009 that a Santa Ana-based medical device firm, Advanced Medical Optics, was going to be sold. The information came from the company CEO, James Mazzo, who was DeCinces' neighbor in Laguna Beach, California, prosecutors argued.
DeCinces bought more than 90,000 shares in the company days before Abbott Laboratories bought the firm, and he sold the shares for a profit of about $1.3 million, prosecutors said.
Fourteen other people made another $1.3 million after DeCinces passed on the tip to friends and family members, prosecutors alleged.
One friend, David Parker, 65, of Provo, Utah, was convicted of three counts on Friday. But the jury deadlocked in Mazzo's case, and a mistrial was declared. However, Mazzo still could face a retrial on 26 insider trading counts.
DeCinces, 66, and Parker will remain free until they are sentenced. A hearing date was not immediately set.
At the time of the merger, Advanced Medical Optics had seen its stock price plunge from more than $30 per share to under $10 in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street crash. It more than doubled after the merger was announced.
"Even though everyone else was losing, they won," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer L. Waier said in closing arguments on Tuesday. "They won big. They won because they knew tomorrow's news today."
DeCinces even called his broker while his father lay dying in the hospital, prosecutors said.
The defense denied the allegations and accused the government of conducting a biased and shoddy investigation.
Prosecutors offered more than two dozen witnesses during the two-month trial, but defense lawyers argued none of them directly implicated DeCinces or his co-defendants.
DeCinces earlier faced civil charges of insider trading. He settled that case in 2011 by agreeing to pay $2.5 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
DeCinces spent 15 years in the major leagues, recording 1,505 hits and 237 home runs. He played for the Orioles from 1973 to 1982, when he was traded to the Angels. He was on the American League All-Star team in 1983.
The Angels released DeCinces in 1987, and he played four games for the St. Louis Cardinals that season. The next year he played for Tokyo's Yakult Swallows in Japan. But he didn't finish the season because of back problems and then retired.
- By LYNN THOMPSON Seattle Times
BELLEVUE, Wash. (AP) — Moses Shiong didn't feel supported at home. His parents, Hmong refugees from Laos, didn't seem to understand their American son. He said they were disappointed that he wasn't a traditional first son, strong, showing no weakness. His mentors said the parents didn't seem to notice him withdrawing, locking himself in his room to cry.
By his sophomore year of high school he was skipping first-period English, too exhausted mentally and emotionally, he said, from arguments at home. When his father had a heart attack and could no longer work, Shiong blamed himself and doubled his hours at a Bellevue pizza restaurant to help his family financially.
Shiong, 17, said he had suicidal thoughts, but knew he couldn't abandon his sister, who was five years younger.
"I wanted her to have a better future. That was a huge motivation for me," he said.
Last month, Shiong stood beside Gov. Jay Inslee, honored as one of the 13 finalists for the state Boys & Girls Youth of the Year Award, given to the high-school senior who most embodies the club's values of leadership, service, academic excellence and healthy lifestyles.
Shiong credits the turnaround in his life to the staff at the Bellevue Boys & Girls Club, where he'd attended after-school programs since he was in kindergarten. At the club, he said, he found adults willing to listen and offer support.
One, Masao Yamada, director of the club's Keystone Leadership Program for high-school students, became a father figure to him, counseling him on how to avoid conflicts at home and offering him opportunities to volunteer, first within the club and then in the community.
Shiong responded by holding every office in the leadership group, from treasurer to president. He volunteered to work with numerous nonprofit organizations, clearing invasive species for EarthCorps, helping shoppers at the local food bank, passing out bottles of water to participants in walk-a-thons and at the Big Climb at the Columbia Tower.
He joined club outings to college campuses in the state and for the first time, he said, his own future began to open up. The club also took the high-school students to meet with local business leaders. They learned about the companies, about the leaders' own paths to achievement and the role mentors had played in their lives.
Yamada took Shiong and another student to Atlanta for a Boys & Girls Club seminar in poetry and the spoken word. In the end, he went from flunking English to finding an outlet for his feelings through writing.
"He more than just helped me," Shiong said of his mentor. "No matter what he was doing, he always had time for me. He allowed me to express myself."
A LIFE TRANSFORMED
In the process, Yamada said, the discouraged, introverted boy blossomed into a young man willing to extend himself to help others.
At the governor's mansion in Olympia, Inslee presented Shiong with the Governor's Award for Community Service, in recognition of the more than 750 volunteer hours he'd logged over the previous three years.
The next night, the 13 finalists presented their own stories to an audience of more than 200 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle. Scanning the program, Shiong said his stomach knotted up. The finalists went in alphabetical order by club. Bellevue was first.
He said he took a deep breath, lifted the microphone off the podium and started moving across the stage, finding the rhythm in his words.
The boy who had trouble speaking up for himself performed a spoken-word poem of his journey from the child who was rarely comforted or heard, to finding protection among the "armored knights" of the Boys & Girls Club staff.
"I killed it!" he said.
He didn't win, but at the end of the ceremony, he was surrounded by people from the audience who congratulated him on his performance.
"I never thought I could speak in front of so many people," he said.
Following his June graduation, Shiong plans to attend Bellevue College so he can remain close to home and support his sister. After two years, he said, he'd like to transfer to a four-year university and earn a degree in education or counseling.
Having served in every position on his club's leadership team, he now holds the title of club ambassador. He testified in Olympia before a legislative committee on a bill to support mentorship programs. In the coming weeks, he will introduce the club's programs and goals to the Bellevue City Council, the Bellevue Rotary Club and the Bellevue School Board.
"It's impressive, really impressive," said Ryan Scott, vice president of Bellevue Boys & Girls Club. "We're really proud that he can represent us."
Shiong also started a new program at the club called "Be Heard," with a goal of reaching out to the quiet kids who might lack the confidence to speak out themselves.
"Maybe they think they're not important. Maybe they haven't gotten the opportunity to express themselves. We want to tell them, 'You're important. We need you,'?" Shiong said.
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Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com
- By STACIA GLENN The News Tribune
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Unexplainable things happened in the Tacoma house where serial killer Ted Bundy grew up.
So many things, in fact, that a contractor hired to remodel the home penciled Bible scriptures on the walls and brought in two pastors to bless the house.
"I'm not one to believe a lot of this stuff, but this house made me a believer," said Casey Clopton, the contractor.
A cry for help appeared on a window as crew members worked in the basement. Heavy furniture wedged into a wall toppled over. Doors and cabinets seemed to open themselves.
It all started in September, when David Truong bought the 1,400-square-foot home with plans to redo and flip it.
He didn't research its history, so he didn't know the local lore or who had lived there.
The little blue house was built in 1946, the same year Bundy was born in Vermont. The Bundy family moved into the home in 1955, records show.
Louise Bundy was no longer living there in 1989, when her 42-year-old son was executed in Florida after being convicted of killing two sorority sisters and a 12-year-old girl.
Investigators linked him to at least 30 slayings, though they believe there were dozens more. His killing spree started in 1974 in Washington and continued for years across 11 states.
'THEY WERE A REALLY NICE FAMILY'
Bundy was 9 when his family moved into the four-bedroom, 1 1/2-bathroom house. Neighbors recall him having a bedroom on the ground floor, though at least one record indicates his room was at the foot of the stairs in the basement.
He lived there with his mother, stepfather and four siblings.
"I don't ever remember seeing Ted," said Hope Murry, a neighbor who grew up a few houses down and later bought her childhood home.
She recalls playing with Bundy's younger sisters and Louise Bundy babysitting her. Once, she went to their house but was told to stay out of Ted's bedroom because he had the measles.
"They were a really nice family," Murry said.
Bundy insisted he grew up in "a wonderful home with two dedicated and loving parents."
Louise Bundy was a staunch defender of her eldest son and long insisted he was innocent. Her stance softened after he made several death-row confessions.
In his final interview with a psychologist just before he was executed, Bundy said his family regularly attended church and believed his violence stemmed from an obsession with pornography that fueled dark fantasies.
Some believe Bundy started killing when he was 14, and that Ann Marie Burr, an 8-year-old girl abducted from her North End home in August 1961, was his first victim.
Bundy denied it in a letter to the girl's mother, written after he was imprisoned in Florida and named as a suspect in Burr's disappearance.
Louise Bundy said back then she was sure he didn't commit any crimes while living under her roof. And DNA testing done in 2011 was unable to link Bundy to the missing girl.
He is, however, still listed as a suspect in the case because detectives could not clear him.
Despite Bundy being one of the most notorious serial killers, there is no evidence he committed any crimes in his childhood home.
That doesn't stop some neighbors, and now the contractors, from believing there's something spooky about the house.
'HELP ME' AND 'LEAVE'
Clopton, the contractor, first visited the house after he was hired in October. He took along his 11-year-old daughter, who sometimes goes with him and takes dictated notes from her dad about the work that needs to be done.
"My daughter started crying," Copton said. "She said she felt weird. She didn't like it there."
She refused to be alone in the house and was so uncomfortable they quickly left.
Clopton returned the next week with a demolition crew. One crew member echoed the sentiment that the house didn't feel right.
Then things started happening, things Clopton kept dismissing as pranks among the crew.
There was the time they re-entered the house — which had been locked — and every door, every cabinet drawer — was open.
Or the time the workers were cleaning up the flooded basement and spotted the words "Help me" written on the glass. A screwed-on screen protector would have made it difficult for someone outside to write it, Clopton said.
A heavy dresser inset in the upstairs hallway wall somehow pulled itself out and landed face-down on the floor while the crew was downstairs.
Workers said it takes at least one strong man to pull it out and there was no way it could have fallen on its own.
"Periodically, throughout the course of the job, we had weird things keep happening," Clopton said.
Cellphones and other electronics occasionally would get unplugged and immediately die. The word "Leave" was found written in sheet rock dust on a bedroom floor with no footprints around it.
Clopton eventually chatted with some of the neighbors about the odd occurrences, asking if there had been a rash of neighborhood break-ins.
That's when he learned Bundy once lived in the house.
Clopton passed the information along to Truong and James Pitts III, the real estate broker. Pitts said he was shocked but excited by the discovery because he has an interest in true crime.
"It was really eerie but really neat," he said. "We made sure to keep quiet initially because we weren't sure how people would react to knowing a serial killer lived there."
Although a handful of potential buyers asked Pitts about Bundy once calling the house home, he said the people who recently bought the house did not.
It's unclear whether the new owners are aware. They were unable to be reached for comment.
TWO PASTORS AND BLESSINGS
After Clopton found out the house's connection to a serial killer, he decided it was time to seek help. So he called a Puyallup pastor and asked him to bless the house.
Two pastors came out and went from room to room, reading scriptures and saying blessings.
They encouraged the crew to continue playing Christian music while they worked. They also suggested writing Bible verses on the walls, which the workers did.
The penciled writing can no longer be seen beneath the fresh paint, but Clopton hopes they will continue to offer protection.
"Everything in that house fought us, and I was kind of weird about it," he said. "But I go to church and I have God with me."
The house was completely redone with new paint, a bright yellow front door and renovated floors and ceilings. But the history remains.
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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com
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