TH URSDAY, mARcH 18, 2010 • 50¢
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Jailer’s convicted killer wins parole By Pamela Hitchins phitchins@vicksburgpost.com
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Arthur Lee Stevenson, who stabbed to death an elderly jailer before escaping custody here in 1974, has been granted parole by the Mississippi Department of Corrections, a spokesman there confirmed. Stevenson, 59, has been serving a life sentence for killing A.J. “Holly” Koer-
A.J. “Holly” Koerper
Arthur Lee Stevenson
per with a knife from the jail kitchen. Before being released from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman,
Stevenson will complete a job training or education program and must have an approved residence, said Tara Booth of the MDOC. The family of Koerper, who was 71 and a deputy on duty at the Warren County Jail when he was killed, is “distraught” at the thought of Stevenson’s release, said his granddaughter, Ann Griffin of Vicksburg. “My heart just fell out of
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By Emily Wagster Pettus The Associated Press JACKSON — Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on Wednesday made his fifth round of budget cuts since the fiscal year started last summer, and he warned lawmakMore on ers to be cautious as Legislature they write a spending plan for the coming year. Also, months after submitting a proposed budget that would spend 100 percent of expected revenue in the year that begins July 1, Barbour reversed himself and said
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not even know a hearing was scheduled,” she said. Warren County victim assistance coordinator Brenda Theriot also said Stevenson’s name did not appear on recent parolehearing lists sent to the DA’s office. While state budget shortfalls were not shown to be a direct factor, Dan Turner, See Stevenson, Page A6.
Barbour yanks additional $41M from budget
TIME FOR A LINE
Mississippi River:
1910: The first filmed adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein,” produced by Thomas Edison’s New York movie studio, is released 1937: Some 300 people, mostly children, are killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas. 1940: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agrees to join Germany’s war against France and Britain. 1970: U.S. postal workers begin an unprecedented two-week strike. 2005: Doctors in Florida, acting on orders of a state judge, remove Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. (Despite the efforts of congressional Republicans to intervene and repeated court appeals by Schiavo’s parents, the brain-damaged woman dies on March 31, 2005, at age 41.)
my chest,” she said. Griffin said the family had been assured that as long as they registered objections at parole hearings, Stevenson would not be released. The state parole board routinely notifies interested parties, including the district attorney and sheriff, when an inmate is to be considered for parole. But Griffin and her family were not given that notice this time. “We did
‘If the Legislature, both houses, pass legislation to void or avoid the 98 percent rule, I would veto it.’ GOv. HALEy BARBOuR he’ll try to block any plan that spends every penny. Faced with a weak economy and anemic tax collections, See Budget, Page A9.
Mississippi gaming falls a step in bragging rights By staff and AP reports
KATIE CARTER•The Vicksburg PosT
Leo Williams casts a line Wednesday afternoon into the lake at Openwood Plantation, one of the places around the county he said he and friends Carl Walker, center, and Geraldine Harris fish together almost every day. With
temperatures creeping into the 60s, weather was perfect for throwing out a line. The National Weather Service was forecasting more of the same throughout the week.
Mississippi has lost its ranking as the third-largest gaming destination in the country to Indiana in 2009. The state slipped to fourth place in terms of adjusted gross revenues from commercial gaming. In 2009, Mississippi’s state-regulated casinos reported $2.46 billion to Indiana’s $2.58 billion. The numbers exclude charitable gaming and Native American
casinos. Mississippi casinos got roughly the same number of visitors in 2009 as they did the previous year, but people are spending less, said Beverly Martin, executive director of the Mississippi Casino Operators Association. “The main thing was being the third-largest destination gave us a great marketing tool — bragging rights, if you See Gaming, Page A9.
SUNDAY VOTE EXPECTED
House Democrats on track to OK $940 billion health bill By The Associated Press WASHINGTON — House Democrats are on track for a Sunday vote on sweeping health care legislation that will expand coverage to millions of uninsured while also reducing the federal deficit, leaders said today. The bill delivers on President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority by providing coverage to more than 30 million people now uninsured at a 10-year cost of $940 billion. It does so through a combination of tax credits for middle class households and an expansion of the Medicaid program for low income people. The No. 2 Democrat in the House said the health care package also would reduce the federal deficit by more than $100 billion over its first 10 years — and more than $1 trillion in
the second decade. “I think the momentum is growing for this bill,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “The more and more people have looked at this bill... a greater number of people are becoming more comfortable.” The big expansion of coverage would not come until 2014, when new health insurance marketplaces open for business. In the meantime, the legislation calls for a series of new consumer benefits. Insurers could not deny coverage to children because of a pre-existing health problem, nor could they place lifetime dollar caps on the amount of coverage. A new high-risk health insurance pool would provide coverage to uninsured people who can’t get The associaTed Press
See Bill, Page A9.
Rep. Steny Hoyer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
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