Newspaper Page Text
Midville’s “Tedi” Thurman
Radio’s “Miss Monitor’’
remembered at home
Vol. 132, No. 30 - Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Established in 1882
Wednesday, September 26,2012 - $1.
Teenage crime ring
Seven charged in
Westgate burglaries
By Elizabeth Billips
lizbillips@yahoo.com
They should have been studying for middle school, but they
were breaking into then - neighbors’ homes.
Waynesboro police investigators have broken up a burglary ring
they blame for at least five recent break-ins in the Westgate subdi
vision. The work-horses were five boys, and
the youngest was only 12.
The teen at the top, 19-year-old Devonte
Alexander Sharpe, was arrested Thursday.
“He was their ringleader,” police chief
Alfonzo Williams said. “He would tell them
what to do, and these juveniles would go
through the neighborhood creating havoc."
According to Chief Investigator Joe Nelson,
Sharpe would take requests from residents,
ranging from jewelry to electronics, then send
out the boys to fill the orders.
In addition to the burglaries, which were all in the neighbor
hood where Sharpe and the juveniles live, the group is also blamed
for vandalisms, thefts and car break-ins.
Police are in the process of securing warrants on another adult,
whose name has not yet been released.
Five boys, ranging in age from 12 to 16, have already been
arrested through the juvenile court system, and charges are pend
ing against others.
Sharpe was charged with burglary, criminal trespass and theft
by receiving stolen property (jewelry).
According to Chief Williams, a number of stolen items have
been recovered from the boys’ homes and from pawn shops.
Anyone with information or who believes they purchased a sto
len item is asked to call police at 706-554-8029.
Devonte
Alexander
Sharpe
By Elizabeth Billips
lizbillips@yahoo.com
She was a 5-foot-7 bombshell
with a drawl that could melt the
snow in Spokane.
The nation said goodbye Sat
urday to one of its most famous
radio personalities - the Miss
Monitor weathergirl Tedi
Thurman.
While 89-year-old Thurman
was laid to rest in the Midville
cemetery, recordings of her
1950s weather reports were be
ing belted over American air
waves and reminisced by famous
commentators.
But those who grew up in the
little Burke County town where
Tedi Thurman was raised re
member her as Dorothy Ruth,
or better yet, Dot.
“Dot was just Dot," said
Midville resident Hogarth
Sandeford, whose Trout Street
house backed up to the
Thurmans’.
He was three years her junior
and caught rides to school with
Dot and her mother in their Lin
coln Continental.
“She even let me drive it
once,” he said, pointing out that
Dot’s father Ben Thurman Sr.
owned the Bank of Midville and
the local Ford dealership. "That
car had air brakes."
But the girl who would trade
her name for Tedi and become
an overnight sensation never
tried to set herself apart in the
town where she grew up.
“She was an ordinary girl who
got along with everybody,”
Sandeford said. "She was the
artistic type, but we never would
have guessed Dot would be fa
mous.”
But she was. A huge Ameri
can audience had been tuning in
to Tedi Thurman since 1955
when she stepped onto the set
of the NBC News weekend ra
dio show, The Monitor, and
swam through the forecast with
a voice her followers would call
sultry and sexy.
She would reel off the cities
and temperatures in no particu
lar hurry, always beginning with
Atlanta.... her native capitol.
“(Tedi) would come into the
studios and be there virtually
every hour of the forty-hour
weekend, with just a few breaks,
and she would do weather with
this lush music behind her,” au
thor Dennis Hart said, as he de
scribed her on National Public
Radio. "To say the least, Miss
Monitor probably became the
most recognizable female voice
in the country within a few short
months."
That led to a Vogue cover.
high fashion modeling and tele
vision gigs like The Tonight
Show.
Even the New York critics
were taken by her Southern
charms.
“Ingredients like hers can
turn the morning dew into a
monsoon,” columnist Alice
Hughes wrote, describing the
“sea-blue eyes” and “long
loosely combed red hair” that set
Tedi apart on the red carpet.
But there was always Midville,
where she was always Dot.
“When she came home, she
didn’t put on any airs,”
Sandeford said, remembering
her Thanksgiving visits at the old
Thurman home, which would
later be sold as her family scat
tered. “Half of the people in
Midville didn’t even know she
was a cover girl.”
Mother denied immunity in boyfriend's death
By Anne Marie Kyzer
annemariek@thetruecitizen.com
A young mother who says she
stabbed her fiance to death in
self-defense was denied immu
nity from prosecution Monday.
Fallon Channel Brady, 29, is
charged with malice murder,
felony murder and possession of
a knife during the commission
of a crime for the death of
Reginald Gray, 31.
Gray died the night of Dec.
12, 2011, when police found
him covered in blood and gasp
ing for air in the yard of the
home the couple shared on Mills
Street.
Brady, who had called 911
moments earlier, initially told
police a masked intruder had
burst into their home and
stabbed her fiance.
But when investigators
pressed for details during an
interview, Brady said she was
the one who stabbed Gray but
did so as he choked her nearly
to the point of passing out. Af
ter he was stabbed in the kitchen,
he wandered through the house
and then outside where he col
lapsed.
Superior Court Judge Carl C.
Brown listened to nearly a full
day of testimony, evidence and
arguments presented by defense
attorney Peter Johnson and as
sistant district attorney Laura
Stewart at an immunity hearing
Monday.
Johnson argued that Gray’s
death was the culmination of a
long-term, violent relationship
in which Brady was the victim.
On the witness stand, Brady
detailed incident after incident
in which Gray had attacked her,
sometimes causing head injuries
and choking her to the point of
unconsciousness. At times,
Fallon’s children, one a 3-
month-old infant fathered by
Gray, were present.
The night of the killing,
Johnson said, Brady merely
grabbed the nearest object she
could to get Gray to release his
hands from around her neck as
he choked her on the kitchen
counter of their home.
“Fallon Brady reasonably be
lieved that at the time she
stabbed Reginald Gray, it was
necessary to defend herself,”
Johnson argued.
However, prosecutors ques
tioned why Brady wouldn’t
have immediately shared the
truth with police when they ar
rived on the scene. Despite her
story of an intrader, there was
no sign of a third party and the
weapon, a silver serrated
kitchen knife, was still inside.
Stewart said Brady had told
four different versions of what
happened that night, including
new details she didn’t share un
til she took the stand Monday.
And investigators said there was
no evidence of a struggle inside
the home.
Stewart also pointed to
Brady’s past, which she said in
cludes two separate occasions
when she pulled knives on in
dividuals.
After considering their argu
ments, Judge Brown said he
would “respectfully deny” the
motion.
At a hearing for immunity
from prosecution, the defense
has the burden to prove that
deadly force was justified. If
Judge Brown had ruled in fa
vor of the defense, the charges
against Brady would have been
dropped. However, his ruling
Monday sets the case on course
to be decided by a jury.
A similar hearing was held in
the case of Christopher Buxton,
who had been charged with
murder in 2008 for shooting his
father William Buxton Sr. The
elder Buxton had a pointed a
gun at his son’s face and then
his daughter-in-law during a
drunken rage in the couple’s
Girard home. A judge denied
immunity in that case as well,
but a jury later acquitted Buxton
of all charges.
04420
Job cuts?
Hospital may
rely on loans
By Anne Marie Kyzer
annemariek@thetruecitizen.com
County taxpayers won’t likely be paying higher property tax
bills to fund the hospital’s recovery.
Burke County Hospital Authority members have begun explor
ing other options to cover the nearly $5 million needed to rebound
the facility in the coming year.
“What it’s boiled down to is the county does not have the funds
in the coffers to provide the kind of funds we need,” administrator
Stephen Shepherd told authority members, also noting commis
sioners’ opposition to a tax hike or cutting other services.
Commissioners have indicated support for covering capital needs
with funds from SPLOST n, which generated more money than
expected, but not for contributing the nearly $3 million needed to
supplement operations.
Shepherd said the authority’s other option is to borrow the money
and ask the county to guarantee the loan. So far, the authority has
been in contact with Regions Bank, which Shepherd said is will
ing to help.
However, he said they are looking for the hospital to pursue
cost-cutting measures to ensure the hospital’s profitability.
Chief among those will be eliminating staff and possibly entire
services.
“I understand what the county is saying ... that we are asking
them to make cuts when the hospital hasn’t cut any staff,” Shep
herd said.
While the authority explores its loan options, Shepherd and his
team will focus on what departments or positions could be elimi
nated.
“The bottom line is, in order to get any money from anybody,
we have to show we can pay that money back in a reasonable
amount of time," authority chairman Gerald Murray said. “We
have to look at cutting back. We have to make some veiy tough
decisions.”
Murray said the bank has also set a stipulation that none of the
money borrowed can be used to pay the previous owners of the
hospital.
“The only way they will support us is if we put the money back
into the hospital,” Murray said. “That brings up the issue of call
pay.”
After discussing the issue, the authority voted to eliminate pay
to medical staff members for taking call at the hospital.
Just last month, the authority had approved an agreement to pay
$500 per day for each of the call areas, including medical, obstet
rics and pediatrics.
Murray said even without the pay, the hosptial will still de
pend on local physicians on the medical staff to cover call on the
weekdays.
Shepherd said he’s looking to doctors working in the emer
gency room to cover call on weeknights, and the hospitalists are
already in place to cover the weekends.