Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 21

INSIDE Find a bargain in the JGT-C Classifieds. PAGES D5-D8 LEE PUBLICATIONS, INC. ,7 TWF I WWW.JG-TC.COM SECTION REMEMBERING DAY 1 Girl, missing for a year, found locked in hidden room in Conn, home 1 i ill- 1 4 BLOOMFIELD, Conn. (AP) Police looking for clues in the yearlong disappearance of a 15-year-old girl said they found her Wednesday, pale but alive, locked in a hidden room in a home owned by an acquaintance of her parents. Bloomfield police went to the home Wednesday in nearby West Hartford to serve search warrants for DNA and other evidence and found the girl locked inside a tiny room hidden underneath a staircase and blocked from view by a dresser.

Authorities did not identify the girl, but said she had sometimes run away from home before she vanished last June. "She is a child from troubled circumstances and found what she believed to be a friend," Bloomfield Police Capt. Jeffrey Blatter said. Police arrested Adam Gault, 41, an animal trainer from West Hartford, and 40-year-old Ann Murphy, described by police as Gault's common-law wife. Police said they also arrested a third person who lived in the house, but no other details were available.

Gault was charged with second-degree unlawful restraint, second-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree custodial interference, interfering with an off icer, risk of injury to a minor and second-degree forgery. He was being held on $500,000 bond. Murphy was charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree reckless endangerment, conspiracy to commit second-degree custodial interference and risk of injury to a minor. She was held on $100,000 bond. It did not appear the girl had been living in the room, but she could not have gotten out on her own, Blatter said.

It was not clear how long she had been inside. West Hartford Police Capt. Lori Coppinger said the girl was scared and timid, crying quietly as she left the house. An officer found her when he slid the dresser back to reveal a locked door. The officer said, "Lieutenant, you better get in here," Blatter said.

The girl was sitting inside a room that was about 3 feet high and 4 to 5 feet deep. Police said they did not find bedding inside. Other people were living in the house, including a 15-year-old boy, though it wasn't clear whose child he was. The boy's case has been referred to the Department of Children and Families, which will also decide if the missing girl should be returned to her parents. Associated Press Day survivor U.S.

veteran Steve Kellman, 84, from Weston, stands with his granddaughter Rita, 10, next to the grave of Lt. Jlmmle W. Monteith who was leading his company when he was killed on June 6, 1944, at the Colleville sur Mer, American cemetery, Wednesday, on the 63rd anniversary of the allied army landing In Normandy, France. D-Day soldier dog tag recently found in France is returned to Term, family 63 years later 4 4 Wl i Ik. Volunteers pluck 7 million pounds of trash from world's waterways is At.

Tik Associated Press Lota Park, first cousin of the Pvt. William Bernice Clark, holds two photographs of the late soldier before a special service in Huntingdon, Wednesday morning. U.S. defense chief evokes memories of human sacrifice at WWII turning point COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) Above a cliff of silent reminders, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday evoked the image of fallen warriors to mark the 63rd anniversary of the Normandy D-Day landings that turned the tide of World War n. The bloody beach assault on June 6, 1944, "unfolded as if it were a lifetime" for the young men who braved German guns, Gates said, looking out upon a vast field of white grave markers on a rainy, chilly day.

Gates attended the anniversary ceremony and dedication Wednesday of a visitor's center at the Normandy American Cemetery, the burial ground for 9,387 war dead, most of whom lost their lives in the amphibious assault and subsequent operations. In remarks at the midday ceremony, Gates said U.S. and allied soldiers landed at Normandy to destroy entrenched forces of oppression "so that this nation, this continent and this world could one day know the tidings of peace" He tied the memory of Normandy to the challenge of today's war on terrorism. "We once again face enemies seeking to destroy our way of life, and we are once again engaged in an ideological struggle that may not find for many years or even decades," he said. HUNTINGDON, Tenn.

(AP) The family of Pvt. William Bernice Clark never had a funeral for him, never got to say goodbye and never really accepted his fate among the fallen during the Normandy D-Day landings in World War II. That was until the young soldier's dog tag, recently discovered in the sands of Omaha Beach in France, was returned to his native Tennessee on Wednesday exactly 63 years after that tragic day. "This feels like an ending," said the soldier's first cousin, 79-year-old Lota Park, who along with another cousin accepted the dog tag at a ceremony in the small town of Huntingdon, about 90 miles west of Nashville. The tag has blackened with age, but his name, identification number, religion (Protestant) and blood type (Type O) are all clearly visible.

It remained out of sight for more than five decades until a collector from England found it five years ago while combing the beach for D-Day artifacts, likely near the very spot where the 20-year-old Clark was killed. The collector gave the dog tag to a World War II buff from New Jersey, who turned it over to the National D-Day Memorial. "It's in pretty remarkable condition, considering it was buried in the sand for 58 years," said National D-Day Memorial Foundation development director Jeff Fulgham, who presented the tag to Clark's surviving family members. The D-Day Memorial, based in Bedford, keeps records of nearly every American and Allied soldier killed during the invasion, and it helped locate Besteiro, the cleanup project manager. "If a sea turtle ingests a plastic bag it may feel full and stop eating, which results in starvation.

Or the bag could block the animal's digestive system and cause death." During the 2006 cleanup, volunteers found 1,074 animals entangled in debris, including fishing line and nets. Only one of those animals survived a female seal found in Hobe Sound. Discarded fishing gear and plastic debris kill an average of more than 1 million sea birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles each year, the conservancy estimates. Last week, an endangered Hawaiian monk seal drowned after becoming entangled in a fishing net off Oahu. In October, Hawaiian wildlife officials found a 5-month-old monk seal dead in another net.

"With only 1,200 monk seals left, this is such a terrible loss," said Christine Wool-away, who coordinates the coastal cleanup in Hawaii, the state with the most threatened and endangered species at 329. WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) Smokers are littering shorelines and waterways worldwide with millions of cigarettes, and their filters topped the list of trash items culled during last year's annual international coastal cleanup, according to a new report. More than 350,000 volunteers removed about 7 million pounds of debris from 34,500 miles of coastlines and waterways, along with ocean, river and lake bottoms, The Ocean Conservancy said in the report, released Thursday. Sixty-eight countries participated in the daylong cleanup last September.

This year's cleanup is set for Sept. 15. Of the 7.7 million items of debris collected worldwide in 2006, cigarettes and cigarette butts accounted for roughly 1.9 million, the sixth consecutive year they have topped the list. Coming in second at about 768,000 items were food wrappers and containers that can be extremely dangerous to wildlife. "A plastic sandwich bag floating in the ocean may look like a jellyfish, a favorite food of sea turtles," said Sonya Clark's family in Huntingdon a couple months ago.

"I remember the day the soldiers came and told his mother (that Clark had died)," Park said. "They never accepted it because there was no proof, no body." The family has only a few personal effects from Clark: two yellowing photos, a couple of letters during his short service and his Purple Heart. His remains were buried in a cemetery for American soldiers in France. The return of a small piece of metal has reconnected his family to the young soldier's life that was cut short. "We were just like brother and sister," said another first cousin, Ava Smothers, 84.

The collector from New Jersey, Bill Santora, said that the dog tag was the most cherished piece in his World War II collection, but that he was happy to give it up when the memorial officials told him it could be returned to his family. "I always wondered who it was," Santora said. "I feel more connected to the soldier, a little connected to family and I think they are going to be happy to have this memento back." Relatives, community leaders and veterans gathered Wednesday in Huntingdon at a park that honors area soldiers who have died in war. "I am reminded that this park is the place where the train carried Pvt. William Clark and other soldiers from Carroll County to war," Fulgham said.

Clark was one of more than 4,000 American and Allied soldiers killed during intense fighting on D-Day, a crucial turning point in the war. The D-Day Memorial is in Bedford, because that town lost 19 soldiers, the highest per capita loss from any single town in the United States. Clark belonged to Company 116th Regiment, 29th "Blue and Gray" Division. "This was just such a nice thing to do for Bernie," Park said, calling him by his nickname. G-8 protesters evade police patrols to reach security fence in Germany HINTER BOLLHAGEN, Germany (AP) A motley band of more than 800 protesters some sporting fluorescent wigs and clown noses scampered through woods and across fields to evade police patrols Wednesday and reach the barbed-wire fence sealing off the Group of Eight summit.

Protest organizers claimed victory for getting as far as the barrier, despite being doused by water cannons, struck with tear gas and tackled as they blocked several roads including the route from the airport as world leaders flew in for the summit. "We have successfully taken over all roads leading to Heiligendamm," said Christoph Kleine of the Block G-8 group. "We are very happy with that." About 150 members of a group calling themselves the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army dressed in wigs, clown makeup and noses, and occasionally in drag blocked one of two road entrances to the summit site for several hours near the town of Hinter Bollhagen, about two miles away. Dozens of police officers in riot gear moved the protesters out of the way, then marched them miles along a dirt road back to Kuehlungs-born. The protesters playfully waved at helicop ters shuttling dignitaries into the summit site "The Clown Army we kicked!" said one of the group's leaders, a Welshman carrying a frilly white umbrella who identified himself only as "Sgt.

Sideshow Bob." The demonstration began with some 3,000 protesters setting out from an encampment on a winding march of several hours, during which they scattered to evade police By late afternoon, some 800 of them had reached the fence, while 10,000 ohter had gathered at other areas where demonstrations had been banned, police said. At one section of the fence, protesters chanted "Peace" and "Free G-8! Free G-8!" while riot police with helmets and transparent shields massed inside Some then pelted police with stones before authorities turned the water cannons on them, police spokesman Manfred Luet-jann said. "What they're doing behind that fence is illegitimate," said Philipp Schweizer, a 26-year-old social worker from Munich. "They're making decisions about countries who don't have any representation." More than 150 people were detained, and at least eight police officers suffered minor injuries, according to police. Associated Press road to the Protesters are sprayed with water cannons by German police at they block main G8 meetings In Hlnter Bollhagen, Germany, Wednesday.

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