CapeCodToday Blog Chowder

Politicians to join in tribute to Auerbach

Senator Ted Kennedy and Gov. Mitt Romney are among those expected to share their memories of the late great Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics tomorrow at a noontime tribute to Auerbach held in Boston City Hall Plaza and hosted by the Celtics.

Also turning out to pay their respects will be former Celtic greats Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn and Jo Jo White, along with Celtics owners and employees.

The event is open to the public and remembrance books will be placed around the plaza for fans to write condolences to Auerbach's survivors and their memories of Auerbach, one of the most successful coaches in the history of sport.

The tribute coincides with the day the Celtics open their 2006-07 season against the New Orleans Oklahoma City Hornets. The game's 7:30 p.m. tip off at the FleetCenter will be preceded with a ceremony honoring Auerbach and a video tribute.

The Celtics plan to establish a scholarship fund in Auerbach's name and will be accepting donations for it from fans.

The first 15,000 fans turning out for tomorrow night's game will receive a commemorative pin honoring Auerbach.

(photo credit, sportsillustrated.cnn.com)

Same Sex Classes

There is some discussion lately about same sex classrooms as the latest educational panacea.  A few years ago the big issue was making every student wear a uniform to school.  President Clinton sent every principal in the country a book promoting it. The initiative must have failed, because today you don't see many kids in school uniforms and the issue seems to have dropped from the media radar screen.

It is the nature of much so-called educational innovation to capture the imagination  with or without adequate evidence to support claims.  People can intuitively agree that  having same sex classes might help some kids, but when you look at what studies exist to support this, there isn't much.

Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is the landmark legislation that bans sex discrimination in schools, whether it is in academics or athletics. It states:

"No person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid."

This latest initiative appears to have started when the US Department of Education announced that Title IX restrictions would not apply to experiments in grouping students on the basis of sex.  I can find no reason why federal law is being waived for this except that many feel that Title IX, the gender equity law, applies only to how much money schools should be spending on school sports.

In a Cape Cod Times editorial today they took the position that it was a good idea.  Well, they didn't really stick out their neck; they said it is worth considering. 

My feeling is this: Schools should try single sex groupings it and see who it helps without tooting it all over the place as the answer.  Results, in terms of test scores and emotional output should be studied. Doctoral dissertations should be encouraged to examine it and survey research should be funded to see how much, if at all, it helps. Finally, the question must be asked if it is worth setting aside Title IX and possibly the culture altering woman's movement to do it?

We need to know these things before we get too infatuated with separating boys and girls at school.

All Hallow's Eve

October 31st, besides being Halloween, is a significant day in a more personal way. You see, back on October 31, 1985 I had my first published article appear in the Barnstable Patriot newspaper at the tender age of 23. For a freelance writer, that's something special - even 21 years and some 500 articles later I still remember the thrill of that first article, to see it in print, with my own byline.

That short article was Halloween-themed, and so I thought it would be appropriate to rerun it here to celebrate the night. (Be kind, I wrote it long ago when I was a much younger person!)

All Hallow's Eve 

Halloween is a night which somehow seems very different from the other 364 nights of the year. On, say, the night of January 23rd or the night of August 12th, witches, ghosts, and goblins are imaginary beings which only lurk, if at all, in the minds of men and women. But on the night of October 31, All Hallow's Eve, or Halloween as it is now called, these creatures come to life. They are, for at least this one night, very much real. On this night, anything is possible.

Over the years the meaning of Halloween, the power of Halloween, has become lost inside of bags of candy and behind plastic masks. The real Halloween lies dormant, hidden beneath the fallen leaves, waiting to surface.

In the past this night received more respect. To our predecessors this eve held more significance. On this night the Druids believed that Saman, the lord of the dead, called his servants to rise from their graves and haunt the earth. In an effort to protect themselves from these spirits, the Druids lit large bonfires. Today, those bonfires have been replaced by meek candlelight. The flame exisits, but the meaning is lost, clouded behind candy bars and lollypops.

Halloween has not truly accomplished its task unless each of us is in some way frightened. It attempts to do this by capitalizing on our primeval fears. In recent years, though, we have set aside our primitive beliefs for we now consider ourselves to be educated beings. But no matter how far we evolve, there will always be something in the far reaches of our educated minds which will bring us back to a time when we feared the moon itself. We cannot escape it, for deep down we are still animals. We will always be haunted. We will always know fear. That is why Halloween "spooks" us.

This particular night frightened our ancestors, and it will continue to frighten their descendants. As soon as the sun sets and All Hallow's Eve is upon us, witches, ghosts, and goblins awaken from their long sleep.

On this night there is no escaping it. We are afraid.

Jack Sheedy

Another shadowy figure in Worthington case

All about that cell phone call; Updated, 11 p.m...

Eyebrow-raising testimony today -- the cell phone used in 2002 by Jeremy Frazier, the Wellfleet man that Christopher McCowen alleges killed Christa Worthington, was listed in the name of Dave Murphy -- a former Somerville man who spent nine years in state prison on a murder rap and moved to Cape Cod after his release from prison in 2000.

State Police Sgt. William Burke testified today that Frazier and Murphy worked for Magnum Movers, an Outer Cape moving and storage company, as of early 2002 when Worthington died. Also working for Magnum Movers, Burke said, was Shawn Mulvey, who testified last week that Frazier spent the night at his family's house in Eastham on the night of the murder, a claim also made from the stand last week by Frazier.

Burke also testified that Worthington had rented storage space since 1999 with Magnum Movers -- the same business employing Frazier, Mulvey and Murphy.

Defense attorney Robert George also asked Burke today if he was aware that Murphy had been arrested on a charge of assault and battery with a deadly weapon in December 2001 -- the month before Worthington's murder -- after Murphy allegedly assaulted his wife. Burke said he was not aware of the arrest.

The judge in the case has issued a court order for Elaine Gambrazzio, the girlfriend of Mulvey's father, to submit her cell phone and credit card records around the time of the murder.

Gambrazzio, a realtor living in the off-Cape town of Abington 20 miles south of Boston, is being called this week as a witness for the defense in an apparent attempt to refute Frazier's claim that he spent the night of the murder at the Mulvey house in Eastham.

Burke also testified yesterday that McCowen on the day of his arrest initially denied having any physical contact with Worthington, as he had in two prior interviews with police. But when confronted with a DNA report linking him to Worthington, Burke testified, McCowen said "it could have been him."

 A state police DNA expert testified Friday that the odds of the saliva found on Worthington's right breast not coming from McCowen at 1 in 199.8 billion. The DNA expert, Christine Lemire, took the stand again this morning, with George's numerous questions about the chain of custody for DNA swabs an apparent attempt to create doubt about its validity among jurors.

Burke described McCowen as lucid, sober and cooperative during the 5- to 6-hour long interrogation, which McCowen declined to be recorded. McCowen also decided not to call a lawyer, Burke said, and called a girlfriend instead.

Burke testified that he had not heard the name Jeremy Frazier until McCowen mentioned it after McCowen admitted having sex with Worthington. McCowen, Burke said, gave at least seven or eight different versions of Worthington's death after he was arrested.

At one point during the interrogation, Burke said, McCowen appeared on the verge of tears when Burke told McCowen that he believed McCowen had sex with Worthington, as shown by the DNA evidence, but his other claims were not credible.

"I told him the evidence led us to believe there had been a struggle," Burke said. "Trooper (Christopher) Mason told him that grass was found in Christa Worthington's hair and we believed something happened outside."

"He looked at me, I could see his eyes filling with tears, and he said, I do have regrets of f***ing her, I'm sorry she's dead, I don't go around killing people, especially with kids there. He said, if I would have done it, why would I still be on the Cape?"

McCowen described Worthington as being "startled" when they appeared at her door, Burke said, "but that she knew his name and he introduced Jeremy to her. He then said that she got in a struggle outside and maybe Jeremy came back and got turned down for sex."

The last thing McCowen said to police, Burke said, was that "you wouldn't admit it if it were you" charged with murder.

During the search of McCowen's Hyannis apartment after his arrest, a black-and-white, "older type" Polaroid photo of "a female child and an adult female" was found wrapped in a T-shirt inside McCowen's bureau, Burke said. 

McCowen initially denied any knowledge of the photo, Burke said, then after it was shown to him said he had found it working for a moving company. The photo was later shown to Jan Worthington, Christa's cousin and the first EMT to respond after her cousin's body was found, and she said it did not appear to be a Worthington family photo.

Another witness to be called this week by the defense, Truro resident Girard Smith, is expected to describe seeing a black truck speeding from Worthington's driveway on Saturday Jan. 5, 2002, a day before her body was discovered. By then Worthington had been dead 24 to 36 hours, according to the medical examiner, making Jan. 5 the likely day that she was slain.

After Smith told police of the vehicle he saw, police searched motor vehicle records for all black trucks registered on the Cape, then narrowing the search to black trucks between Orleans and Provincetown with the numbers 16, 17 or 18 in the license plate, as Smith told police he saw. Among the dozens of trucks fitting that description was one owned by Matthew Frazier, Jeremy Frazier's uncle.

Testifying this morning, Frazier described the vehicle in question as a black 1988 GMC heavy dump truck, license number H11832, weighing 30,000 pounds and used to sand and plow roads in winter. The truck had a logo reading "M.A. Frazier, Inc., Wellfleet, Massachusetts," and a "caterpillar yellow" plow out front, Frazier said. His business has contracted with the state to plow roads for about 20 years, Frazier said.

Frazier said his nephew Jeremy did not begin working for him until March 2005 and did not have access to the truck in question in January 2002.

"Is it your testimony, sir, that Jeremy Frazier in that time period never operated that vehicle," prosecutor Robert Welsh asked Frazier.

"That is in fact my testimony," Frazier said.

Cross examining Frazier, George asked if he had worked as a police officer in Truro. Frazier said he was a dispatcher and police officer for "approximately two years" and a full-time patrolman for "little over a year" before starting his business in 1990.

Frazier said he began operating his business out of Wellfleet in 1993 and one of three bays he rents at the site was rented in 2002 to his brother, Michael Frazier, Jeremy's brother, and owner of a landscaping business.

His brother kept a dump truck, pickup, Bobcat, trailer and other equipment in the rented bay in 2002, Frazier said. Asked the color of the dump truck and pickup, Frazier said both were black.

Frazier said he was also driving a pickup in 2002, a 1996 Ford F250 with a black cab and a "very bright blue" body on the back with multiple doors, a style of truck often used by electricians.

Any one of your trucks, George asked, "had no business, meaning professional business, up in the area of 40 Depot Road on Jan. 5, 2002, did it?", referring to the house owned by Worthington.

"That is correct," Frazier answered.

"So if it was up there, it shouldn't have been up there because you have no business up that way, right?" George asked.

 "Not at 50 Depot Road," Frazier answered.

Judge Gary Nickerson ended today's session early, at 1 p.m. rather than the usual 4 p.m., to allow jurors with children to prepare for Halloween.

Nickerson has not yet decided on a motion from George for jurors to visit the scene of the crime, a shingled bungalow sold by the Worthington family after the murder.

Ptown crash; Quiet Halloween; Son charged in alleged baseball bat attack on father; Your chance to become a police officer; Halloween safety