Around the Region

Man sentenced to 110 years for double-slaying\nFORT WAYNE -- A man convicted of shooting to death an ex-girlfriend and a man has been sentenced to 110 years in prison for the killings, which were witnessed by two girls.\nLamar "Marty" Parker was sentenced Friday to 55 years for each victim, a sentence that satisfied the families of Anissa Cole and Calvin Soil, who were fatally shot May 24, 2001.\n"I think it was fair," said Norma Williams, Soil's adopted sister. "Our family doesn't believe in taking a life for a life. This is better."\nParker, 31, avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty Dec. 18 to two murder charges.\nProsecutors said Parker lay in wait as Cole, an ex-girlfriend, entered her Fort Wayne home, and shot her in the back of the head. He had been released from jail days earlier for a prior battery against her.\nTwo girls, ages 11 and 13, saw Parker shoot Cole, then fire at Soil, who also was in the house, as Soil ran away.\nSoil, 39, died within hours of the shooting, but Cole, 26, lived for six months before dying Nov. 20, 2001, in her hospital bed.\nCole had told Parker the day of the shooting that she wanted nothing to do with him because he was always hitting her and pulling his gun out, according to a probable cause affidavit.\nOverworking police officer earns more than mayor\nFORT WAYNE -- A police officer who put in hundreds of hours of extra duty last year helping catch drunken drivers earned nearly as much as Fort Wayne's mayor, The Journal Gazette reported Sunday.\nSgt. Jon Bonar's workaholic ways may not last much longer, though.\nBonar, who earned $92,239 last year, could soon lose his post as administrator of the Fort Wayne Police Department's drunken-driving grants.\nPolice Chief Rusty York said the current setup allows Bonar to reap too much of the extra duty paid for by the grants.\n"It does concern me that one person is accumulating this much in special assignment," York said. "Nothing wrong has been done, I just think we need to give some of this responsibility to our higher command people."\nEach year, some of Fort Wayne's police officers make more money than their supervisors by working hundreds of hours in extra duty. But no one racked up more extra duty than Bonar.\nLast year, his personal mission to catch drunken drivers earned him $33,538 in bonus pay for a total of $92,239 that landed him just short of Mayor Graham Richard's $93,855 in total earnings for 2002, according to The Journal Gazette's analysis of W-2 tax records.\nBonar seeks and administers state grants targeting drunken motorists. The money pays for him and other officers to work late-night shifts focused on catching people driving while intoxicated.\nBonar, who surpasses all other officers with hundreds of drunken-driving arrests each year, said that without the DUI task force the force would not have made as many arrests as it did.\n"It's a big win for the citizens because it got these people off the street," he said.\nIndiana House seat settled by expensive recount\nINDIANAPOLIS -- The battle for a crucial Indiana House seat that was settled only by a recount was Indiana's most expensive legislative race to date, The Indianapolis Star reported Sunday.\nDemocrat David Orentlicher, the victor, and Republican Jim Atterholt together spent $779,963 last year seeking the House District 86 seat.\nTheir campaign spending shattered by more than a quarter-million dollars the prior legislative spending record of $526,168 set in a 1998 Senate race that saw Sen. David Ford, R-Hartford City, win re-election.\nOrentlicher's defeat of Atterholt, the Republican incumbent, by 36 votes in a recount gave Democrats a 51-49 margin in the House.\nA different outcome would have given Republicans control of the General Assembly for the first time since 1996.\nAfter winning the once-safe Republican district by a slim margin in a recount, Orentlicher said he knows he'll have to aggressively raise money if he wants to keep his seat in 2004.\n"I expect to have to start this summer," he said.\nOverall, spending in the Atterholt-Orentlicher race was eight times as high as the $98,618 average for contested House races. Together, their campaigns spent $39.45 on each of the 19,772 votes cast in the race.\nAtterholt, an aide to U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., outspent Orentlicher by $161,132 -- raising $118,445 of $470,547 he spent from House Republicans and $76,702 more from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.\nOrentlicher, an IU professor of law and medicine, spent $309,415 to win. Most of it was used to buy 30-second ads attacking Atterholt and to send mailings to voters.\nThe District 86 race was one of a dozen or so fiercely fought battles that led major party candidates in the November elections to spend a record $8.06 million to fill 100 House seats, The Star found in an analysis of year-end campaign finance filings.\nThat figure is about $60,000 more than the previous campaign spending record for the House in 2000. That year, out-of-state interest groups spent heavily to influence which party would control Indiana's once-a-decade process of drawing congressional and legislative maps.\nThe result of that redistricting was an election so close that Democratic control of the House wasn't clear until at least two days after the election.\nThe Star found that the Indiana State Teachers Association, a union representing 45,000 members, once again vastly outspent its nearest rival, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.\nIn House races, the teachers union spent $1.03 million, most of it on 39 Democrats. Only $36,700 went to five Republicans. Forty-two of 44 House candidates the union gave money to won.\nThe chamber, meanwhile, spent $333,912 on 28 Republican candidates, all but six of whom won.\nSeventy Democrats on the November ballot spent a total of $4.03 million, a mere $18,078 more than their 80 GOP rivals spent.\nThe prize -- serving as a part-time lawmaker -- paid an average of $37,800 in 2001, including travel and expenses. The position also comes with health and pension benefits.