Saturday May 12,
2012
50 cents
Daily Corinthian Vol. 116, No. 115
Today
Tonight
77
61
• Corinth, Mississippi • 16 pages • 1 section
Search & rescue manhunt After 7 hours, officials find wreck victim BY STEVE BEAVERS sbeavers@dailycorinthian.com
Search and rescue workers found their man. Nicky Wilbanks, 38, of Booneville, was found around 4:45 p.m. Friday following an over seven-hour search that involved numerous agencies. A Union County K-9 unit found Wilbanks, severely dehydrated but alert, about 25 yards off the roadway in some bushes west of U.S. 45, according to Alcorn C o u n t y Wilbanks Emergency Management Coordinator Ricky Gibens. “It has been a good afternoon,” said Gibens. “It’s always successful when you find them alive.” Wilbanks was airlifted via Air Evac to Memphis Regional Hospital (Med) for precautionary reasons after spending 17 hours outside following the crash. The 38 year-old was injured in a one-vehicle accident around 11:30 p.m. Thursday. He was traveling south on U.S. 45 when the 1999 Monte Carlo he was driving left the road and struck a power pole near the Alcorn-Prentiss line. According to those at the scene Thursday night, the vehicle was heavily damaged. “When first responders arrived on the scene, no one was in the vehicle,” said Gibens. “The family approached us about conducting a second search and we exhausted all of our resources to find him.” Pisgah Fire Chief Gary Yancy responded to the accident within three minutes of hearing the 911 page on Thursday night. “A 150-foot area was searched with a thermal imaging device and nothing was found on that night,” said the chief from the Rienzi Crossing command post. Family members reported finding a bloody handprint about 200 yards from the accident scene on Thursday night. Wilbanks’ longtime companion, Valerie Ratliff, last talked to him at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. “He had an interview with
Thunderstorm
Two girls didn’t eat for days BY ADRIAN SAINZ AND HOLBROOK MOHR Associated Press
Staff photos by Steve Beavers
Alcorn County Search and Rescue ground search commander Bea Allen and husband Jeff scroll through coordinates Friday afternoon during the search for a Booneville man involved in a Thursday night accident.
Alcorn County Search and Rescue’s Tate Lancaster cools off his K-9 partner Zinny Friday afternoon. a construction company and then a dentist appointment,” said Ratliff. Emergency management was appreciative of the assistance of Alcorn County Communications during the
search. Members of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, Union County K-9 Unit, Alcorn County K-9 Units, Prentiss County Sheriff’s Department and the Prentiss County Horse-
back Team along with the Farmington, Pisgah, Burton, Rienzi, Wheeler, Biggersville, and Southwest volunteer fire departments all aided Alcorn County Emergency Management in the search.
GUNTOWN — Hope was fading that two young sisters abducted from their Tennessee home would be found alive two weeks after they vanished: Their kidnapper had already killed their mother and sister, and he was armed with a pistol as officers closed in. Yet 12-year-old Alexandria and 8-year-old Kyliyah Bain went home to their father Friday alive, with no apparent injuries other than being tired, scared and itchy from poison ivy. They told the officers who found A. Bain them that they had not had food or water for three days, said Mississippi Highway Patrol Master Sgt. Steve Crawford. Beverly Goodman, the aunt of the slain mother, Jo Ann Bain, K. Bain said she was relieved the girls were home but still saddened by the killings of Bain and Bain’s 14-year-old daughter Adrienne. “He’s been missing for so long. How do you hide out from 350 million people?” Goodman said. “I thought they were going to find them dead — the girls and him — so I am very, very relieved that those girls are home and they’re not dead, like I figured they were gonna be.” At one point, Mayes had claimed to be the girls’ father. That may be why he spared them, one criminologist said. It also may be that while he wanted to escape prosecution, he didn’t believe the girls were better off dead. And he was close to the family, described as an unclelike figure who smiled cheek-tocheek with the girls in Facebook photos. “He probably developed an attachment to them, and even the most vicious of killers can separate the world into people they care about, people they detest and people they don’t care about,” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Please see MAYES | 5
Fulton Drive Farmer’s Market Store employee faces charge getting open-air covered shed embezzlement Owner reports BY JEBB JOHNSTON
jjohnston@dailycorinthian.com
Plans are moving forward to build a covered structure for the farmer’s market location on Fulton Drive. Representatives of the county, city and the growers have been discussing a proposal to place a shed at what has become a popular location for some of the sellers. It is city-owned property, and the county is proposing to fund the shed, said Board of Supervisors President Lowell Hinton. It is planned to be an open-air shed in which customers would walk through the middle with growers and their produce situated on either side. An open-air shed would provide some relief from the summertime heat and would not violate flood plain
regulations that apply to the Fulton Drive property. “We want it to look nice and meet the specifications that the city has,” said Hinton. “The farmers really want this, and it will be a good location where people can come and go with a lot of accessibility as far as the road is concerned. I don’t know the time frame, but we are moving pretty fast on it.” Other cities have used this type of shed with success, and it can be expanded in the future, he said. “This will be another step in growing this market,” said MSU Extension Service County Director Patrick Poindexter. The Shiloh Road location, which has existed for more than 40 years, will continue. While there had been some
previous discussion of pursuing a covered location on county property in the industrial area, growers had expressed concern that it was too far out of the way. A few growers have already been selling, and local residents can expect an impressive selection of produce this year as a result of the mild winter and early spring. A late frost did a little bit of damage in scattered areas but was not enough to curtail a bumper crop, according to Poindexter. However, bugs, weeds and all of the problems that come with them are also abundant. “It’s been one of the busiest springs I’ve had in eight or nine years,” said Poindexter, who is fielding many questions from gardeners.
Index Stocks........7 Classified......14 Comics...... 13 Wisdom...... 12
Weather........5 Obituaries........ 3 Opinion........4 Sports...... 10
loss of more than $10,000 BY JEBB JOHNSTON jjohnston@dailycorinthian.com
The Corinth Police Department charged a convenience store employee with embezzlement on Friday. Wanda Hardin, 37, of County Road 441, Rienzi, was charged with felony embezzlement. She was released after posting $3,000 bond. Detective Capt. Ralph Dance said the owner of Crossroads Quick Stop on South Harper found that the employee had pocketed a little more than $10,000 during a three- to four-month period. After interviewing the
employee, the manager presented the information to the police department. In a separate case, the Corinth Police Department arrested Chad Beard, 24, of Tidwell Drive, Booneville, last Sunday and charged him with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. The arrest came after a call of a reckless driver on or around Fulton Drive. After stopping the vehicle, officers obtained consent to search and found a bag containing a large amount of marijuana under the passenger seat, three additional bags and digital scales in the vehicle console, and another small plastic bag on Beard, said Dance. Beard was released on $2,000 bond.
On this day in history 150 years ago A jealous Gen. Halleck gives little authority to Gen. Grant, his second-in-command. Grant receives a letter from Gen. Halleck which explains that all Army orders will be sent to commanders and Grant will be bypassed, but should not complain about it.