Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

LT RRRSR— L L & 4 3\ K" \ ‘ WY j»é A\l M . ki “ : . SR ' @”' —é ! "“;’ ; 9 e Josey’s Sherika Wright & ARC’s April Steele Who is the best point guard? * P.6A Deejay-slaying suspect linked to unsolved 1990 torture/homicide Family of Margaree Bridges feels doubly victimized at daughter’s horrible death. By Frederick Benjamin Sr. AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer " AUGUSTA When Thelma Reid heard that the man accused of killing Irene Shields was Garry Deyon Johnson, it brought back terrible memo ries. Johnson was the man who was accused of killing her 26-year old daughter, Margaree Bridges, around December 3, 1990. Johnson was acquitted of the killing, but Ms. Reid believes he was released only w kill again. “The district attorney that let’ this man go back in the street, the blood is on their hands. This woman would be alive today if they hadn’t of done such sneaky and dirty thing against me and my family. “They told me they know that he wasthe killer, but they couldn’t do anything. I wanted to know why they couldn’t do anything, but they didn’t tell me anything,” Ms. Reid said this week. “Ms. Reid’s anguish is two-fold. It began with the anguish of knowing that something terrible had happened to her daughter and not being able to check on it for several days because the owner of the apartment where her daugh ter lived would not let her into the apartment to check. - “I called him [the owner] to see if I could get in to see if she (Margaree) was in there, sick or hurt or something. He said ‘You people think any time of day or night you pop your finger, people are going to come running.” He said, ‘Tain’t comingnowhere,” and he slammed the phone down in my ) : ~ |lt’s New! - Augusta/Aiken ~ Social Notebook - Nee Page 9A :,,:......’................... ®National/1nternati0na1............................. 2A . WLocal/Regional News..........c.cuoerrsrivnnnnn.. 3A B TEONI 00l uioviansssabsmscam s piish sodbinst i sios I e . ek ' EQOrial/Opißion .........o.ooorer i 84-5 A WG s stuiisionios, TORALRNE TABITEING /oo i stritosssssromussmsisrint T 8 . BChurch News..........osomssinsss 48-5 B . MClassifieds/Employment ................... 68-TB The Workplace: Dealing with difficult bosses - raw.. < " . Opinion: Race - what conservatives don’t want to hear- Page $A - %ngh&eflopolimn Augusta, South Carolina and the Ceiviral Savannah River Areg face.” Ms. Reid is convinced that the owner of the apartment was try ing to coverup the fact that her daughter’s body was in his build ing. Finally, the owner relented and with Ms. Reid’s son present, they opéned the apartment and called the police. .“Therewas blood all on the walls and @l on the bed. Her hair was stuck to the carpet,” Ms. Reid re calls. Her daughter’s skull was crushed, a cord was tied around her neck and she had been burned severely on her body as if a hot comb was used. , Margaree had been missing from Dec. 3 until Dec. 8, 1990. In the ensuing trial, April 28-30, Ms. Reid com that her fam ily was not notified the trial was underway and when m«: let them know about it, they were barred from entering“the court room. “They treated us like we had committed a crime,” Ms. Reid re called. : Margaree had moved into an apartment on Ellis Street indown town Augusta several months be fore her death. : According to Ms. Reid, her daughter did not know Garry Johnson very well. “Noneofusdid. Shedidn’t know that man,” Ms. Reid recalls. “I'’haven’t lived a life since then. It took everything I had to bury herandto try todo the best I could for Jamie (Margaree’s daughter). No human being should have to go through what I've gone through.” See FAMILY, page 12A gt S A R b i ~:%'{, ' ke ! A it . it ] : E e : - 2 B L g@"g:w;.w; » i e 4 | e | 5 e, T - !' O i . k. R i e HE & L W B 4 f T T (% . Y " R A 1 b ’;"”‘,, e e &i Y A f . ,"“" e bgo , . h - : R B " 1 O ; ; e ) ' . A 5 ke 9£ . A o A )bi " b v i . 3 ] e ook ¢ e ! R ,mrflifq 5 ¢ i il . : % o & : ! gt r 4 h ] b ¢/ e ? UG R AR T z‘ rene Shields ; Margaree Bridges Wicked Coincidence? o On the road where Irene Shields died, a cross stands guard — placed there by one who may have heard the murder in progress. Margaree Bridges also died needlessly. A suspect in the murder of Ms. Shields, had been tried and acquitted for the murder of Ms. Bridges in 1990. “They told me they know that he was the killer, but they couldn’t do anything. I wanted to know why they couldn’t do anything, but they didn’t tell me anything.” . | — Thelma Reid, mother of Margaree Bridges. ' ¢ ) -~ y | | p ) pm— 3 T. - . o Pl ; B T | o WS ] el ! ‘i'> - 0 AETeR 7 AT T FOy a Le RO b Gl gkS e*. fi“ R et _E 5 BN b At T, e e " - e T s St reve au e Ty B s i - Phoiu it fif,;@}fich 3 -5 : RIS AT ! TR A SR R B R 3 £k o n & B L 0 oe O R i . %el : | t < Q\. vru N ! - : L L 81 A o : =¥ AR F o 1 3 L WS g o ey Y 6t S aAY e IS R % » = R SRAF g 4 . ; S TRI Photo and inset by Debby Rivera Louis Farrakhan, left, leader of the Nation of Islam, with Winnie Madikizela- Mandela, right, former wife of South African Presi dent Nelson Mandela at a news confer ence in Soweto, South Africa Monday January 5, 1998, Farrakhan - criticized South Africa s Truth and Reconcili ation Commis sion on Mon day while : praising Winnie Madikizela- Mandela, the focus of o commission probe on human rights abuses. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell) Lb 3 3 He’s going ' } to kill me! — Irene Shields, appealed to the police for help just days before she was brutally murdered. By Christy Allen AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer AUGUSTA Irene Shields died on a country road to nowhere. At the spot where she painfully drew her last breath — bound, gagged, and swelling with terror — a small cross stands amidst short stacks of scattered pine needles resting on the cold, hard go\md speckled with »d blood, a grim re minder of alife that ended just short of a helping hand. Irene cried out desper ately for help. But if any one bothered to extend a hand on her behalf, it was too little, too late. Just four days before her body was discovered on 801 l Weevil Road in rural Burke County out side of Waynesboroon De cember 27,1997 the Rich mond County Sheriff’s Department responded to a call at her 4125 Pin nacle Pines Ct. residence in Hephzibah. The report filed by the officer at the scene reads, in part: “...she asked the primary aggressor ... to move and White parents oppose naming school after MLK ®Fears that school would be stigmatized as a black school and hurt graduate’s chances for college education sparks reaction. RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) Some white parents are fighting a plan to name a new high school after Martin Luther King Jr., claiming it would be branded as a black school, hurting graduates’ college chances. “It’s a very difficult situation, because we’re all going to come across as a bunch of racists, which isreally not true,” said parent Chris Blasnek. : The school in this city about 60 miles east of Los Angeles is sched uled to open in September 1999. I would be about two-thirds white. Flyers left on doorsteps recently urged parents to speak out against the proposed name when theschool board votes on the issue Monday. Some parents say that graduates of acampus named after King might be perceived as coming from a pre dominantly black school, which they claim could hurt their college entrance prospects in some states. ... he stated he was not going anywhere and was going to kill her and the children and that no one would ever be able to pin it on him and that no one would ever know.” The “aggressor” re ferred to above was Shield’s boyfriend and roommate, Garry Deyon Johnson. Johnson was arrested on Monday (January 5) and charged with the murder of Irene Shields. This is Johnson’s second murder charge. In 1992, he was acquitted of the murder of Margaree Bridges who was discov ered beaten to death in her Ellis Street apart ment in December, 1990. Johnson was acquitted in that case duetoinadmiss able evidence, according to Burke County Sheriff Gregg Coursey. Irene, a loving mother of three children, ages 7, 9, and 11, worked at the post exchange at Fort Gordon and was also a part-time deejay at Foxie 103, alocal radio station. Her on-the-air name was “Nicole Diamond,” later See MURDERED, 12A “In some parts of the country, (Kingis) not looked upon as somebody famous,” said Mark Van Meter. “That’s balo ney,” said Rose Mayes, founder and co-chair of the Riverside Martin Luther King Monument Vision aries Foundation. “These people need to get a life. They need to go to some cultural sen- “It's a very difficult situation, because we're all going to come across as a bunch of racists, which is really not true.” - parent sitivity training.” The name was defended by Lew Vanderzyl, president of the River side Unified School District and a member of the committee that pro posed the name. “Whether he was black, white, green or red, the things for which he worked so hard are things that all Americans can stand to con sider,” Vanderzyl said Friday. In 1996, a similar controversy aroseinnearby Corona-Norcowhen an elementary school was named for the late farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. Opponents noted that he led boycotts against local citrus growers. X OSTAGE AID 12/1/84 302 rvavoTA, GA