93 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(12/10/10 5:39am)
Fred Rumple is the owner and master barber stylist at The Golden Shear near East Third Street and South Jordan Avenue. He is of medium height and hefty build. His hair is white and, like all barbers, is well combed. He has a bright face and jolly demeanor. If you were to add a beard and a big red hat, Fred Rumple could be Santa Claus.
(04/14/14 5:55pm)
There’s something about Nick’s that makes it inseparable from the IU
experience. It’s not just the decidedly cream and crimson decor. It’s a
more humble bar than other establishments on Kirkwood. It’s a place to
sit down and drink a God-fearing pound of American beer out of a jar.
It’s inherently Hoosier.
(04/14/14 5:55pm)
Click here for "Dad's Bucket," the full project, including photos and video.
(04/04/14 3:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>DU QUOIN, Ill. — Before every run, Morgan McKinney stares into the distance. She pulls up on the reins, knowing Brady, her 19-year-old bay horse, will follow her gaze to the far side of the rodeo arena.She picked a spot on the far side of the arena and visualized a clean run. Then, Morgan, a senior at New Palestine High School, dropped her hands. Brady knew what to do next.He galloped forward, past the six poles lined up in the middle of the arena. Then Morgan turned the horse, weaving him down through the poles, then weaving back up, before turning and sprinting toward the gate again.On a riser overlooking the arena, Morgan’s mom, Julie, followed Brady and Morgan with her iPad.The announcer read Morgan’s time: 22.883 seconds.“I guess for the first run of the year, not bad, but not what we were wanting,” Julie said, punching her daughter’s time to the iPad. “She’s not going to be happy.”This is what high school rodeo looks like east of the Mississippi. It’s teams travelling around the Midwest to compete. It’s warming up the horses early because the temperature is too cold. It’s cowgirls giggling over which Instagram caption to use — #RodeoLyfe? #RodeoSwag? It’s birthday cake in the stables between events. It’s showing off championship saddles and belt buckles.Most of all, it’s a lot of waiting. Waiting for your event, waiting for your turn in the draw, waiting, waiting, waiting.Morgan, 18, competes in pole bending and barrel racing with the Indiana High School Rodeo Association. She has been only competing in high school rodeo for three years, but has been to nationals every year so far. All her best friends rodeo with her, she said. While her classmates were putting on ballgowns for prom last year, she was in Du Quoin, Ill., strapping a saddle on Brady. She’s a senior now, and is going to Purdue University next year to become a veterinarian.“I couldn’t see myself not being with animals just because they consume my life now,” she said.She watched the first run of the day on her mom’s iPad while waiting in her parent’s camper. Brady gave up early. He lifted his head up at the second pole, he was gasping for air by the time they finished.Morgan’s time will be averaged with her time for the next day, which means both she and Brady would have to do better to keep ahead in the state rankings.“What’s your goals this year?” Julie asked Morgan.“They’re to make nationals in both events and win,” Morgan said. “On the right track so far. Just my barrels to work on.”“Wish I was on the right track,” Michael Shreeve, one of Morgan’s friends in rodeo, said.Michael, 17, rides bulls and competes in team roping, but he’s been a bull rider since he was 7. He’s been state champion in the event for three years and has already been offered a scholarship to ride bulls at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.“I’d rather get on 20 bulls than rope 20 steers,” he said. “I know people who make a living off it, but you gotta have a backup plan. That’s why I’m going to college.”He showed off his gear behind the chutes, where cowboys congregate and get ready for their eight-second ride. He pulls out of a gear bag his $500 helmet (“That’s the most important thing”) his $250 bull rope (“This sure can get expensive”) and his $55 blue jeans (“Your mother will get pretty mad if you wear a new pair of jeans to ride”).As the rodeo began, Michael took off his black cowboy hat and knelt to the ground, putting a hand in the dirt. He asked God not for the best run of the night, but to keep him safe. He knows accidents happen all the time in roughstock events like bull and bronco riding. Just a few minutes later, the first bareback rider of the night was bucked to the ground, dragged across the arena and slammed into the metal fence.The next morning, western swing echoed around the arena as judges prepared for the day’s competition. In the stables, Morgan was getting Brady for their second pole bending run.It was warmer than the day before, hopefully Brady wouldn’t be as stiff. Morgan put some rubbing alcohol and IcyHot near his flank to help with muscle spasms before riding him around the rodeo grounds.Before the run, she handed her hat and jacket to Michael and strapped on a helmet. The announcer called her name. Her mom was standing by with the iPad.She led Brady to the gate and pulled on the reins. She stared to the far side of the arena for a moment, then dropped her hands. Brady knew what to do next.
(03/14/14 2:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>TERRE HAUTE — On the bench, the Western High School Panthers gripped each other’s hands. Their knees shook. Some stomped the ground anxiously. Against two-time defending champions Evansville Mater Dei, the girls basketball team was 39 seconds from a state championship in their first IHSAA finals appearance. Mater Dei was ranked No. 2 in the state at the end of the season. Western wasn’t even in the top five.“The little secret I knew was that these kids could do it,” Western Coach Chris Keisling said.And there they were: Last Saturday night in Indiana State University’s Hulman Center, up 36-33 with less than a minute to play for the 3A state title.For high school athletes, this is the highest level of competition. They just need one word to understand what’s on the line: State.We’re going to State.That year they won State.Winning comes with rings and banners. Losing means a long bus ride back home wondering what went wrong.“It’s something we’ve been working toward since fifth grade,” Western’s senior guard Kiersten Durbin said.Before the game started, a song played through the loudspeakers, “I had a dream so big and loud. I jumped so high I touched the clouds ... This is gonna be the best day of my li-i-ife.”As the announcer read the names of the Mater Dei starting lineup before tipoff, the Western players held hands, their knees shaking.Mater Dei, led by 6-foot senior guard and IU commit Maura Muensterman, was slowed by Western’s 2-3 zone defense, something the Wildcats hadn’t seen much of all season. By halftime, the score was tied at 21.In the second half, it was an even match. Western was up by two, then Mater Dei was up by one, then Western by one. But the Panthers’ strong defense worked, holding Mater Dei to 35 points, their lowest all season.The fans were as loud as a full Assembly Hall when their team pulled ahead. Most of Russiaville, Ind., — home to Western, population 1,096 — seemed to show up for the match. Both sides spat vitriolic protests at officials when a call didn’t go their way. As the final buzzer rang with Western ahead 38-35, players on both teams had tears in their eyes.In a press conference after the game, Mater Dei Coach Steve Goans answered questions softly, his eyes down. “Maybe we didn’t move the ball the way we should’ve,” he said.Cheers echoed into the room from across the hall, where the Panthers carried the IHSAA trophy into their locker room.Leading scorer Carley O’Neal said she’d be screaming out the window the whole way back to Russiaville before a 1 a.m. pep rally at the school. She’d yell at cornfields, trees, passing cars. Her teammates know she celebrates that way after every game, but this one is just different.It’s State.“It’s probably going to be a late night,” Keisling said. “Probably will be late to church tomorrow morning.”
(02/28/14 5:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>NEW CASTLE, Ind. — The custodian watched the final shot arc toward the basket. As the buzzer rang and the crowd stood to leave, Frank McMahon headed for a storage closet across the huge gym.“All right,” he said. “Now the fun begins.”Frank is tall, built like a baseball pitcher, with white Nikes and a green New Castle Trojans ballcap. He arrived late in the first period, but it wasn’t a problem. Frank’s not on the clock until the end of the game.He, along with four students who help, are in charge of cleaning the world’s largest high school gym after every game.The five largest high school gyms in the country are in Indiana, but the New Castle Fieldhouse reigns king with seating for 9,325 fans when auxiliary bleachers are pulled out.Three years ago, the Anderson High School Indians closed their 8,996-seat Wigwam to save $550,000 on utilities and personnel. The Wigwam used to pack a full house. So did the New Castle Fieldhouse. But lately, high school basketball hasn’t had the draw it once did.Games against big rivals like Anderson would fill the Fieldhouse years ago. Only 1,337 fans showed up in the game against the Indians last week.For Frank, fewer visitors means less trash at the end of the game.“Oh, this is nothing,” he said laughing. “This is gravy right here.”While the rest of the crew cleaned the stands — first by hand for the popcorn boxes, nacho boats and pop bottles, then with gas-powered leaf blowers for the popcorn kernels, ticket stubs and dust — Frank mopped up a few small spills on the track that rings the Fieldhouse.“Best part is you get a good view of it all,” he said, pausing for a moment, leaning on the mop. “I could walk these stands in my dreams.”Frank grew up following his father, an MLB relief pitcher, wherever he was playing that summer. Frank made his way to Indiana about 20 years ago at the urging of a friend. Today, he works in the cafeteria for the schools in New Castle, is a part-time pitching coach and remodels houses on the side.“I work in the food service job, and that pays just about squat,” he said. “I took this to make some extra money while I could still coach baseball. That was over nine years ago. You just sort of stay.”After about an hour and a half, the Fieldhouse was clean. Frank loaded up piles of trash bags into the bed of his pickup truck and filled almost two dumpsters full.Once their job was done, the crew pulled out a basketball. Alone in the world’s largest high school gym, they took turns making shots, the bounce of the ball echoing off the hardwood bleachers.“It seems like nothing new, now that I’ve been here awhile,” he said. “But it’s still pretty cool that it’s the biggest.”
(02/14/14 5:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Running through the clawing cold of a surprise snowstorm, the Bloomington High School North boys cross country team tried to stay warm.School had let out early, so the team split up for its daily workout. This time of year the runners are mostly training with slow runs, 7 to 10 miles each day. But inclement weather can make even an easy run dangerous.“It was cutting into my eyes, I couldn’t see,” Griffin Tichenor, a junior, said. “It was pretty much ice. It just got so thick. You couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you.”He was wearing shorts, his legs burning from snow and ice as he ran laps around Bryan Park. His body had begun focusing blood flow to his core, away from extremities. As it gets colder, the body relies more on carbohydrates, depleting energy and using water faster.On the other side of town, near Gladstein Fieldhouse, Fergus Arthur, another BHSN junior, was caught in the same storm. He was on his own when he realized the snow was so thick he couldn’t see the cars on the road next to him.“The wind, though,” Fergus said. “It can be negative 5 and no wind is no big thing, but it can be 5 and windy and it bites your face off.”In the bitter cold of January and the sweltering humidity of August, long-distance runners train all year. They’ll say the offseason is what separates the losers from the winners. This winter has been particularly rough, Coach Charles Warthan said — one of the worst he’s seen.Yet there’s only been one day this winter when the team opted to run indoors on treadmills. “I jokingly say if you get cold, pick up the pace,” Warthan said. “It’s a little bit of pride and toughness, as long as it isn’t stupidity.”So on days like last Tuesday, when the snow was so thick it was hard to keep going straight without slipping, running wasn’t just about staying warm — it was about mental endurance.In Bryan Park, Griffin’s eyelashes froze together, his hair was weighed down by thick white snow. After 4 miles, for the only time all year, Griffin decided to ditch the run. “I was pretty pissed,” he said. “But I couldn’t physically do it because I couldn’t see.”Meanwhile, Fergus was still out running. Dry sidewalks were now buried under fat snowflakes. His face was so numb he thought he had frostbite.But he was too far from home. He had to keep going. The ground was slushy, making it hard to take each stride. Even though he was cold and soaked from the snow by the time he got home, 10 miles later, he was that much more prepared for the next run.“You just gotta accept your conditions and watch your footing,” Fergus said. “It is as much a physical training as it is a mental training. When I get on the track, it’s like I’ve been there before.”Follow reporter Charles Scudder on Twitter @cscudder
(11/22/13 3:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A bright blue cloudless sky welcomed the president to Dallas.Cheering Texans lined the streets of downtown as his motorcade made its way to Dealey Plaza.“Mr. President,” Nellie Connally, the governor’s wife, said to John F. Kennedy, “you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”Pop. Pop. Pop.* * *Plop. Plop. Plop.Rain fell on umbrellas in Bloomington as students scurried across campus. Friday afternoon meant only hours till the Old Oaken Bucket game, only a few more days of class until Thanksgiving.Along Third Street, as co-eds walked to class, the word began to spread. Women cried. Men shouted.The president had been shot.“You can miss class if you wish,” an economics professor told his students in Ballantine Hall. His hands shook as he collected exams. “I just can’t lecture today.”Prayers and sobs echoed off the walls of Beck Chapel, full to the brim with students with stern faces and bewildered looks.The Indiana Daily Student newsroom in Ernie Pyle Hall was flooded with crowds of students waiting to hear the latest over the radio. At 2:38 p.m., the news came from Dallas.The president was dead.* * *Many classes were canceled that afternoon, and the Purdue game was postponed. Campus activities continued as plans were made in Washington, D.C., to bury the young president.Churches in Bloomington were packed that Sunday, pews filled as Americans came to grips with the loss of a leader.The day Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery, IU President Elvis Stahr implored students to continue to strive for the ideals he had stood for, “to eliminate bigotry, hatred, prejudice and intolerance from our minds and hearts.”The rain had passed, and the president’s killer was dead, too. The nation began to look to the future.Follow reporter Charles Scudder on Twitter @cscudder.
(11/07/13 5:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Judge Marc Kellams isn’t used to hearing the message he got from the family of a slain Pizza X driver Wednesday.“Most of the time when I sit through these, what I hear from the families is hatred,” Kellams said. “We didn’t hear that today.”Instead, the family of Adam Sarnecki, 22, offered heartfelt concern for the future of the man who killed their brother, son, fiancee.“I hope you were listening,” Kellams said. “You can still do good.”But the nature of the crime and 24-year-old James Finney’s prior criminal history led Kellams to issue the maximum sentence: 65 years for murder and eight years for each of the two charges of carrying a concealed handgun. He’ll serve the two eight-year sentences concurrently, the judge ruled, bringing the total sentence to 73 years.“If released, you may well prey against other citizens,” Kellams said. “I think you’re dangerous, James.”* * *A jury found Finney guilty of murder and the two other charges last month. Finney told the judge Wednesday he plans to appeal the conviction.The jury found that shortly after midnight on Nov. 4, 2011, Sarnecki drove up to the Pizza X south location after delivering a pizza to find Finney trying to break into cars in the dark parking lot.Finney fled. Sarnecki followed.In a grainy security camera video, jurors saw the two run off screen. They saw Sarnecki run back to the Pizza X building seconds later.They heard testimony from a co-worker of Sarnecki who called 911 when the 22-year-old came in dripping with blood.Sarnecki was sped to the hospital and later died in the operating room.In the days that followed, an undercover Bloomington Police Department investigation attempted to purchase the gun used in the murder from Finney. “I can’t let you walk with that gun because there’s a body on it,” Finney told a police informant.Three days after Sarnecki was killed, Finney was arrested and charged with murder.“I got scared, and I’m not trying to go to jail, man,” he said in a police interrogation. “The right thing and the best thing ain’t the same, you know?”Defense attorneys suggested that Finney acted out of “sudden heat,” that he was afraid of Sarnecki — who was chasing him when Finney turned with the gun — and that he should only receive a lesser charge of manslaughter.But Sarnecki was shot in the back, prosecutors argued. On his way to the hospital, the dying man had told police “the gun jammed,” suggesting that Finney tried to fire additional shots.The jury agreed, convicting Finney of all three charges.* * *Sherry Gill would have been Sarnecki’s mother-in-law. Her grandson, Gabriel, is Sarnecki’s son. Gabe was 3-months-old when Sarnecki was shot, but can recognize the tattoo of his father’s face on the back of his mother, Tiffany Josh.Gill remembers holidays with the young family — Josh, Sarnecki, little Gabe and Josh’s two other children. Sarnecki lived for those children, Gill said during the sentencing hearing Wednesday. Sarnecki would always make sure the children were taken care of and presents were bought for them, Gill said. “That Christmas tree was always full,” she said. “Because he’d make sure he’d do overtime for them.”Josh, who ran out of the courtroom sobbing when the verdict was read, had trouble starting her statement to the courtroom Wednesday.The night he was killed, Sarnecki stopped by her house to tuck the kids into bed while he was out on a pizza run, she said. Four hours later, screaming ambulances and bright police lights carried Sarnecki to the hospital.“I see the hurt in my baby’s eyes every day,” she said, facing Finney. “It’s not OK to be so selfish. I never realized how selfish a person can be before this.”And yet through all that hate, Sarnecki’s family offered Finney forgiveness. They asked the judge to hand down the maximum sentence, but then asked Finney to find peace through faith.Sean Sarnecki, Adam’s brother, told Finney he also had a criminal past, that he had gotten out of prison the day Adam was shot. He said he found strength through the Bible and hoped Finney would do the same.“I’ve been in this courtroom and every other courtroom in here. I’m no different than you,” Sean told Finney. “I’d like to be able to call you my brother one day — my brother in Christ.”Even Ronald Sarnecki, Adam’s father, who sobbed when he talked about never seeing his son again, said he had forgiven Finney. He invited Finney to write to him in prison, asking his son’s killer to reach out and accept the forgiveness he was offering.“I’d rather be there for you than hate you for the rest of my life,” he said. “I’d love to have a time with you and my son in heaven.”* * *During the trial, Finney did not testify in his own defense. In fact, the defense did not call a single witness to back up Finney’s story. Wednesday, the judge did not hear anything from Finney either. Instead, his defense attorney said his young age, a prior diagnosis of mental disorders and the taped confession were reasons to give Finney a lighter sentence.Yet, the aggravating factors outweighed the claims of the defense, Kellams said. As he handed down the sentence, Finney rubbed at a teardrop tattoo under his right eye. He never broke the stone-faced stare he had held throughout the trial.“It all seems so wasteful of human life,” Kellams said. “Not just Adam’s life, but yours. It seems so pointless.”
(10/08/13 6:48pm)
It ribbons through wooded hollows and dense wetlands, through open meadows and under footbridges that ferry students to towering academic halls.
(10/07/13 9:19pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Standing in the courtroom, eyes toward the jury, James D. Finney placed his right hand over the four-leaf clover tattooed on his left hand.After six and a half hours of deliberation, the jury had returned to the courtroom to issue their verdict.It was a case that had grabbed headlines and kept Bloomingtonians looking over their shoulders at night while the suspect was still at large. The shooting gave Finney the moniker of “the Pizza X Shooter.”Monday evening, Finney, 23, was convicted of murder and two other felony counts of carrying a handgun. Finney had a prior conviction of felony intimidation, which raised two misdemeanor charges of carrying a handgun to felonies. His sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Nov. 6.Two years after the shot was fired outside Pizza X, a jury ruled Finney had killed Adam Sarnecki, 22, after returning from delivering a pizza.* * *A string of nighttime shootings near campus — along with a deadly apartment fire and the all-too-recent memory of Lauren Spierer’s disappearance — had Bloomington on edge in late 2011.Police knew a .380 handgun was used in the robbery of a Smoke-N-Lotto store in rural Monroe County and was used to shoot a 60-year-old woman walking her dog, but both cases were unsolved in the early days of November.Seconds after midnight on the morning of Nov. 4, 2011, Adam Sarnecki burst through the north employee’s entrance of the Pizza X location on South Walnut Street Pike.He’d been shot, he told other Pizza X employees on shift that night. They took him behind the front counter of the building, applied a clean cloth to his wound and called 911.The dispatcher asked what had happened.Sarnecki had pulled his Honda Civic behind the building, like he always did, and in the illumination of his headlights saw a man trying to break into a tan Ford Crown Victoria.He got out of the car and chased the man behind a storage unit next door, near a wooded hollow in back of Pizza X. Then Sarnecki was shot in his lower back.When Bloomington Police Officer Jeff Rees arrived at Pizza X, Sarnecki was already bleeding internally. He was in pain, Rees testified last Tuesday, but he was able to provide a description of the man who shot him.He was five-foot-ten, Sarnecki said. The shooter had hair on his chin and wore a brown hoodie over his head. Rees asked him how many times the man had fired.“The gun jammed,” Sarnecki kept saying. “The gun jammed.”An ambulance arrived, rushing Sarnecki to the hospital. After several hours in the operating room, Sarnecki was pronounced dead at 4:40 a.m. There were no suspects.* * *Finney was arrested three days later. He had a fresh teardrop tattoo below his eye, a sign for having killed someone. Hours after the shooting, Finney told a confidential police informant he wanted to get rid of a gun. When the informant tried to buy the gun under police surveillance, Finney refused. He later said he wanted to drop it in the lake.“I can’t let you walk with that gun because there’s a body on it,” he told her. “A girl like you will get caught with it. You’ve got kids. I can’t blame you for telling where you got it.”A search warrant was executed for his trailer at 4212 Lilac Lane in the early morning hours of Nov. 7, where the gun was found and Finney was taken into custody. He plead not guilty to the murder in a Monroe County courtroom two days later.Finney was appointed a public defender, Michael Spencer, who entered an insanity plea on Finney’s behalf in September 2012. That plea was withdrawn two weeks ago as the case geared up for trial.In the first day of testimony, jurors saw a grainy video from a security camera on the building next door to Pizza X. The video lasts about a minute and shows a shadowy figure approach the passenger door of the Crown Victoria. Then, the screen is lit with the headlights of Sarnecki’s Honda coming around the Pizza X building. The jury saw two figures run past the headlights. Just a few seconds later, a single form runs back, opens the door to the Pizza X building and runs inside.Thursday, the jury saw video of a police interview with Finney. At first, he denied shooting Sarnecki, but later he changed his story.“I got scared and I’m not trying to go to jail, man,” he said. “The right thing and the best thing ain’t the same, you know?”“I feel like a piece of shit, you know?”* * *After the prosecution rested Thursday afternoon, Spencer made a motion to have the jury consider the lesser charge of manslaughter — as opposed to murder — in their deliberations.He said the confession video proved his client was scared that night. Sarnecki ran at him, chased him, cornered him, Spencer said. His client felt threatened and acted out of “sudden heat.”“James didn’t know what Sarnecki was going to do,” Spencer said. Prosecutors fought back, saying Finney created the situation of fear by going to break into the Crown Victoria to begin with. Judge Marc Kellams allowed voluntary manslaughter, reckless homicide and criminal recklessness as possible charges within the definition of sudden heat.Friday morning, Kellams asked Finney’s lawyers if he would be testifying, as they had not made plans to call a single witness on his behalf.Finney declined.Spencer asked Finney in open court how he thought the trial was going.“Could be better,” Finney said.“Could be better, but facts are facts, right?” Spencer said.When the jury came back into the courtroom to hear evidence, the judge explained that because the prosecution had rested its case, it would now be the defense’s turn to build a case.“Thank you, your honor,” Spencer said. “At this time, the defense rests.”The jury was released for the weekend without hearing a word of evidence from Finney’s defense team.* * *Finney wore the same suit he had throughout the trial as closing arguments began Monday morning. Prosecutor Jeff Kehr reminded jurors that Finney admitted to shooting Sarnecki during the police interview and showed little remorse.“Adam unwittingly got into Finney’s business,” Kehr said. “I don’t think there’s any argument that James David Finney did it.”Spencer, Finney’s lawyer, painted a different picture of that night. It was dark and wet, he said, and Finney was just out to break into cars. He said Finney never had any intent to kill anyone, and therefore couldn’t be guilty of murder.“This is not a murder case,” Spencer said. “At that moment, full of terror, full of fear, James pulls his gun.”As the jury deliberated into Monday evening, Tiffany Josh, Sarnecki’s fiancée, and Chelsea Sarnecki, his sister, talked about Adam in the courtroom. At first, Josh said, Adam’s loss was nearly unbearable. “I kept thinking he’s on a long vacation and was going to come back,” Josh said.They watched videos and looked at photos of Sarnecki and Josh’s 2-year-old son Gabriel, who was three months old when his father was killed. Gabe can recognize his face on the tattoo that reads “IN LOVING MEMORY” on Josh’s back.Before the jury re-entered the courtroom, Judge Kellams told spectators to keep their reactions masked while the verdict was read. But after the judge said “guilty,” Josh couldn’t keep it in. She gasped and sobbed in the courtroom, audibly at first, then softly. Josh followed the jury out and wept in the hall as her fiancé’s killer sat stone-faced. Later, leaving the justice center, Josh said she was relieved. She had her children to attend to, a boyfriend to go see.“It was nerve-racking there for the last few hours,” she said on the steps of the justice center. “Got to go home and take care of my babies.”Follow Charles Scudder on Twitter @cscudder.
(10/04/13 2:25pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Jurors will not hear any evidence in defense of James Finney, 23, accused of killing Pizza X driver Adam Sarnecki, 22, in November 2011.The defense rested Friday without presenting any evidence, sending the jury home for the weekend.Before the jury came in to hear the defense’s case, Judge Marc Kellams asked Finney’s lawyers if he would be testifying, as public defenders had not made plans to call a single witness on his behalf.Finney declined.His attorney, Michael Spencer, asked Finney how he thought the trial was going.“Could be better,” Finney said.“Could be better, but facts are facts, right?” Spencer said.Earlier in the week, jurors heard evidence about the nature of the shooting and how the investigation progressed in the hours and days after Sarnecki was killed.They heard from first responders, who explained how Sarnecki was conscious when they first arrived, giving a description of the man who had shot him. They watched security camera footage from a nearby storage facility that showed two figures run off into the woods and only one return to the Pizza X location on South Walnut Street Pike.They heard from a confidential informant, Crissinda Brault, 27, who met Finney at Occupy Bloomington in 2011, where he first showed her a .380 caliber handgun, the same kind used to kill Sarnecki. It was also the same kind of gun used in two other crimes — including shooting a 60-year-old woman in the thigh — that Finney is accused of.Bloomington Police gave Brault hidden cameras and recording devices and had her meet with Finney. When they told her to set up a chance to buy the gun, Finney refused to hand it over.“I can’t let you walk with that gun because there’s a body on it,” Brault remembers Finney saying.Prosecutors also showed video of a police interview with Finney. At first, he denied the charges, but he changed his story, saying he acted out of fear.“I ain’t a killer,” he said. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I had no intention of killing anyone, all right? I was just trying to get some money.”“I feel like a piece of shit, you know?”And yet, after the prosecution rested Thursday, Spencer told the jury he would not present any additional evidence. When the jury entered the courtroom, Kellams explained that since the prosecution had rested, it would now be the defense’s turn to present evidence.“Thank you, your honor. At this time, the defense rests,” he told the jury.Outside the presence of the jury, Spencer had made a motion to allow the jury to consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter — as opposed to murder — in its deliberation. Spencer argued that Finney was afraid and acted out of “sudden heat” when Sarnecki came upon Finney during an attempted robbery.“James didn’t know what Sarnecki was going to do,” Spencer said. “They weren’t going to sit there and talk about IU football.”Prosecutors pushed back, saying that Sarnecki’s wound in his lower back does not match the defense’s story that Finney was afraid or shot in self-defense.Kellams ruled Friday morning that voluntary manslaughter could be considered under the condition of “sudden heat,” and that charge will be included in his final instructions to the jury.The trial will resume with closing arguments at 9 a.m.Follow reporter Charles Scudder on Twitter at @cscudder.
(09/18/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Executive Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences made it clear Tuesday he has little faith in the ability of his undergraduate students to think critically.On my porch, in Ernie Pyle Hall, at Buffa Louie’s and Nick’s, on walks in Dunn Meadow and all over this campus, I’ve talked about the proposed merged media school with my peers. Every student I come across has full, educated opinions because we have been taught at IU to develop strong arguments supported by facts.However, Larry Singell, executive dean of the college, said Tuesday in a meeting of the Bloomington Faculty Council, “undergraduates are only here for four years and may not have a long term vision for the college.”He is mistaken. Undergraduates care about more than just their four-year degrees. We care about the quality of our education and the education of our peers. We care about the reputation of this University, its graduates and its faculty. As a senior looking toward graduate school, I care about the future of this program and those like it at IU. I care about faculty independence and the direction of future curriculum.This administration has, at every turn, ignored the voices of others. Provost Lauren Robel’s original announcement strategy was to act first and explain to the faculty later. Now, that atmosphere of ignorance has manifested itself as neglect of student voice.It’s not just Ernie Pyle Hall. Student voice has been actively ignored in the closing of the Office of Women’s Affairs, the Leo R. Dowling International Center and other important decisions that will have an effect on students at IU for decades.There is no discussion — other than students talking to students — involving WIUX, IU Student Television, the Indiana Daily Student, Inside magazine, Arbutus yearbook, American Student Radio and other student media outlets on this campus.We are proud of our independence. We are a breed of self-starters who aren’t afraid to question our administration and report the truth. Ernie Pyle Hall is full of students who have written letters, made requests, sat in on meetings, hooted, hollered and raised hell whenever appropriate, and yet our voice is still ignored.When the School of Journalism faculty split into committees to discuss the future of the new program, I was the only student voice. Out of almost 700 journalism students, only one had a voice on a committee deciding the future of their school.The inclusion of student voice comes down to this. If this new school is to succeed, it will depend on the recruitment of quality faculty and quality students.Students know best how to recruit other great students and how to improve the program they see every single day.The School of Journalism has some of the top student journalists in the world. Two out of the last three years, a Hoosier has won the “Pulitzers of college journalism,” the Hearst National Writing Championship.I have high hopes for the future of this school. I think it is an opportunity for invention and innovation, to explore new frontiers of communication and media production. It can be everything that Robel and Singell and President Michael McRobbie have said it should be. We have the opportunity to continue to be one of the greatest places for mass communications education in the world, and I’m excited for that opportunity.But unless there is open discussion between different voices — undergraduate, graduate, faculty and administrative — the new school will stagnate and fail before Franklin Hall even opens for classes.— cscudder@indiana.eduFollow Charlie Scudder on Twitter @cscudder.
(04/15/13 2:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There’s a certain amount of strategy necessary at a massive beer festival like the Bloomington Craft Beer Festival.There’s no way you’ll have a chance to sample every single beer offered from the more than 50 breweries in attendance. You can pick a single style and try all the offerings of that style. You can try to just pick Indiana breweries or just go for brews you haven’t tried.A friend of mine properly described it as “the classiest power hour you’ll ever have.”Here are some of my favorites from Saturday’s festival at Woolery Mill.THREE FLOYDS BREWING CO. Toxic Wasteland Russian imperial stoutAPPEARANCE: Dark black with a thick brown headAROMA: Chocolatey, but with decent hop aroma and slight notes of pineTASTE: Roasted chocolate tones fade into piney hop flavor and bitternessMOUTHFEEL: Very smooth but heavy with a dry finishOVERALL: There were a few of beers at the festival that blew my mind. This was one of them. This is a very special beer.NEW ALBANIAN BREWING CO. Black & Blue Grass spiced Belgian aleAPPEARANCE: I was expecting this to pour dark, but ended up being a hazy golden, like an India Pale AleAROMA: Very floral, lots of spices like corianderTASTE: Very flavorful, blue agave fruit in the beer comes through and makes it crisp, cool and surprising from the first sipMOUTHFEEL: The blue agave really comes through and gives this an almost menthol characterOVERALL: This beer literally stopped me in my tracks with a “woah.” Every sip was a surprise. Novelty outweighed drinkability, but a nice brew nonetheless.ZWANZIGZ Rauchbier smoked lagerAPPEARANCE: Dark amber with a nice head AROMA: Smoky with a traditional lager aromaTASTE: Hits the traditional German style on the head perfectly, well smoked and well balancedMOUTHFEEL: Easy to drink, great style executionOVERALL: It’s not often that I see an American brewery pull off a real rauchbier, and Zwanzigz out of Columbus, Ind., does this.UPLAND BREWING CO.Champagne Velvet pilsnerAPPEARANCE: Light as light can be and crystal clearAROMA Little aroma, but clean and crispTASTE A decent pilsner, nothing fancy, good “easy drinking” beerMOUTHFEEL Heavily carbonated, very easy to drinkOVERALL This pre-prohibition revival from Upland will appeal to the macro-drinking audience. It’s a good bridge to introduce non-craft drinkers to the market.CUTTERS BREWING CO. Empire Imperial Stout aged with bourbon and vanilla APPEARANCE: Dark black with a dark brown head, thick and stickyAROM:A Immediately get the complex flavors you would expect from a bourbon/vanilla combo, oaky, malty, flavorfulTASTE: Pulled off the bourbon a little early, it could stand a little more bourbon flavor, but still very nice. Smooth vanilla balances the intense malt bill and oak from the bourbon makes it sing.MOUTHFEEL: Goes down much smoother than the normal Empire stout, otherwise uncarbonatedOVERALL: Served on a five-gallon pin, so it was uncarbonated and unchilled, but very satisfying and complex.BLOOMINGTON BREWING CO. Ruby Bloom amber ale aged in a Chambourcin wine barrelAPPEARANCE: Dark red and amber, thin headAROMA: The aroma from the Chambourcin grapes comes through right away, makes it sweet and smoothTASTE: Amber ale characteristics with the grape flavors from the wine barrel and slight oak notesMOUTHFEEL: The wine flavors make BBC’s standard amber smoother than what you’d normally find around townOVERALL: A nice change of pace, smooth while still keeping a little bite from the Ruby Bloom base.— cscudder@indiana.edu
(04/12/13 2:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Ed Herrmann is a German-trained brewmaster who worked as brewer at Upland Brewing Co. for six and a half years. Thursday evening, he gave a lecture at The Bishop Bar about the history of beer.He found his Bell’s Brewery Two Hearted Ale and explained beer’s backbone. All you need, he said, is crushed grain, yeast and water. Additives like hops, fruits, spices, berries, herbs and more flavor the beer and give different, complex profiles.One of his favorite additives, Herrmann said, was a medieval tradition that made beer clearer as glass drinking vessels became more popular. Bird feathers, early brewers found, helped collect particulate to clarify beer.“They thought a great way was to throw in some feathers,” he said. “It kind of worked and they got to the point where they’d throw in a whole chicken.”The most popular additive in today’s beer is hops. Hops, Herrmann explained, are flowers with glands full of acids that have bittering properties that manipulate flavor to balance the natural grains’ natural sweetnesses.The earliest known fermented beverage was a rice-based beer product from the Henan Province in China, as old as 8500 B.C. In Sumer, “consuming beer was the custom of the land.”That early influence on the importance of fermented beverage has continued through human history. In 1516, the Bavarian Purity Law, or Reinheitsgebot, stated that beer can only contain hops, grain and water. When the pilgrims of Plymouth came to the New World, they stopped in what is now Massachusetts because they ran out of ale, an important purifying agent for their water. And today, beer drinkers celebrate the craft in a growing market that extols the old styles while still exploring new ways to create new brews. It all goes back to the rise of early civilizations and their development of fermented beverage.“This took place right as people were settling down from mobile hunter gatherers,” Herrmann said. “They were living pretty good.”— cscudder@indiana.edu
(04/11/13 2:09am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Cutters have taken Kirkwood Avenue.Along with Upland, Bloomington Brewing Company and other craft breweries from Indiana, Cutters Brewing Company has taken over taps at Bloomington’s most popular bars for the collegiate crowd.At Kilroy’s on Kirkwood, the three Bloomington breweries (Upland, BBC and Cutters) have launched a Battle of Bloomington Beers. It’s a friendly battle between the brewers to see whose beer can run out first.The Cutters spent $2 Tuesday at KOK, promoting beer and munching on KOK’s finest pub fare. At Scenic View Restaurant, the Cutters gave out a pint glass for every two pints bought, going through just about a whole case.Wednesday night, they went to Nick’s English Hut for a tap takeover. Along with the usual slate of macros like Guinness and Pabst Blue Ribbon, Cutters served Floyd’s Folly Scottish Ale, Monon Wheat Ale, Lost River Summer Ale and their new Belgian Pale Ale. Co-owner Monte Speicher tells me that KOK has a keg of their brand new Sour Brown Ale. I’ve heard good things, so keep an eye out for it.At Nick’s Hoosier Room, the Cutters, otherwise known as Speicher, his wife Amanda, Ian Hunt and Hayes Cooper, sat with Pete Mikolaitis, a manager at Nick’s, eating stroms and sipping on Belgian Pales and Monon Wheats.They talked about what’s next for the nanobrewery, the youngest and smallest Bloomington brewery that recently relocated production to a larger space in Avon, Ind.There’s a double IPA in the works, Monte said, which will be named Full Court to match their Half Court IPA. Right now they are putting special pin tappings all over town, from The Atlas Ballroom to Yogi’s Grill & Bar. These five-gallon containers are not carbonated but allow the brewers to craft special blends and be creative in flavor blending.When Mikolaitis pointed out that a large table down the bar had already ordered four pitchers of Cutters — two Belgian pale ales, one summer ale and one Scottish ale — Hunt and Cooper jumped up and headed toward the table.“We heard you are drinking Cutters,” Hunt said. “Well I’m one of the brewers for Cutters, and we brought you a pint glass and a shirt.”That’s what the Cutters are up to now. They’re going table to table, bar to bar, introducing new folks to their “Hard Working Beer.” As they expand — Speicher said they hope to be in the Chicago and Cincinnati markets soon — they’ll keep these roots close to heart.What’s next? “Anything and everything,” Amanda said.— cscudder@indiana.edu
(04/10/13 3:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Tuesday was a perfect day to drink beer.The sun was out, the wind was blowing, everything about it said spring and for someone like me who cut their beer-drinking teeth at the biergartens of northern Bavaria, it was a perfect time for a beer.As the Germans would say, “Gott sei Dank it is Bloomington Craft Beer Week.” Tuesday night, The Tap on North College Avenue hosted a Brewer’s Workshop with head brewers from four Indiana breweries of various sizes. Bloomington Brewing Company founder Jeff Mease led Brugge Brasserie’s Ted Miller, Flat 12’s Rob Caputo, Sun King’s Clay Robinson and Black Acre’s Justin Miller in a conversation about the state of brewing in Indiana and their own backgrounds in brewing.“I found naming the brewery the hardest thing to do,” Robinson said. He said before settling on Sun King, he had tried out “Solstice” as a reflection of the idea of the passing of seasons, as Sun King produces a changing slate of seasonal brews.The brewers also discussed the changing market and how new struggles remain on the horizon for the industry. As more macrobreweries like Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors start producing so-called “crafty” beers like Blue Moon and Third Shift, more of the craft market is threatened. Even with the expanding beer market, only 2.9 percent of all beers sold in Indiana are craft brews, Ted Miller said.All of the beer commercials in Super Bowl XLVII, Robinson pointed out, had ties to the big corporations. Corporations have looked at everything from beer names to logos and packaging of small breweries to emulate them on their larger-scale projects.“Craft beer has soul,” Robinson said.So what’s next?“Sessions,” Ted Miller said.American brewers have had their love affair with pale ales and are now trending toward sours. The market has already been saturated with heavy-hitting experimental ales that reach 10, 11, 12 percent ABV and beyond. What drinkers need now, the brewers agreed, is a solid group of low ABV beers that are easy to drink, yet remain full-bodied and flavorful.“I want to drink beer because I love it,” Robinson said. “I don’t want to drink a beer I can only have three to five ounces of or only one of. I want to sit down and drink beer for three hours and hear all the crazy stories you have.”He said he’s working on a collaboration for his upcoming wedding this summer with Oskar Blues Brewery in Denver that will be low ABV and hoppy, so he can drink a lot of it and still get the flavor he enjoys.“It’s a lot easier to make an 11 percent than a good four percent,” Justin Miller said. “For us, we’re trying to bring back the lunch drinking, which is an art which has beenlost.”— cscudder@indiana.edu
(04/09/13 12:46am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Three years ago, the Brewers of Indiana Guild decided to expand its bill of beer festivals. The standard bearer of Indiana beer festivals was already Winterfest in Indianapolis, which brings thousands of hopheads to the state fairgrounds every January. There’s also Dark Lord Day in Munster, Ind., hosted by Three Floyds, Hoosier Hops & Harvest in Brown County and a gaggle of others.To hit a new, growing market of southern Indiana brewers and the college community of Bloomington, the Guild brought a beer festival to the historic Woolery Mill on the southwest side of town. Today, the Bloomington Craft Beer Festival brings in brewers and craft beer drinkers from all across the state to talk about the craft and sample some damn fine brews.The Guild has extended the events beyond the Saturday festival to a week-long celebration of hops, yeast and grain. The inaugural Bloomington Craft Beer Week offers a variety of events for the casual drinker and the full-out beer nerd.All week15 percent off all Bloomington beers at Sahara Mart on East Third Street.Battle of Bloomington Beers at Kilroy’s on Kirkwood. A friendly competition between Upland, Bloomington Brewing Company and Cutters. The first brewery to blow a keg wins.TuesdayCutters Brewing Co. at Scenic View Restaurant, pint glass giveaways and sample tastings. 6 to 8 p.m.Brewers Workshop at The Tap, meet brewers from Sun King, Brugge, Black Acre and Flat 12 . 630 p.m.Yogi’s Beer School with Indiana beers. Free samples and beer talk at 7 p.m..Wednesday Girls Pint Out at The Tap, hang out with the women of GPO Indianapolis chapter, hosted by Cutters.Restaurant Tallent pairing with Bloomington Brewing Company. Call Restaurant Tallent for reservations.Triton Brewery Tap Takeover at Max’s Place, 6 to 9 p.m.Cutters Brewing Tap Takeover at Nick’s English Hut with new Sour Brown Ale and Belgian Pale Ale, 7 to 10 p.m.Cheap Pint Night at The Bishop, all Indiana breweries have $3 pints.ThursdayLecture at The Bishop, free lecture from Ed Herrmann of the IU Department of Anthropology on the history and production of beer, 6 p.m.Upland release party of Champagne Velvet at The Tap, taste the historic “beer with the million dollar taste,” back on the market for the first time in decades. Tap Takeovers Fountain Square at The Owlery, Flat 12 at Max’s Place, BBC at Nick’s.FridaySpecial tapping of Cutters blend of Empire Stout and Floyd’s Folly Scottish Ale at Yogi’s, 7 p.m.Bloomington brewers (Upland, BBC, Cutters) will be at The Video Saloon for beer tastings, 11 p.m.New Albanian and BBC tap takeover at The Tap, 7 p.m.SaturdayBloomington Craft Beer Festival at Woolery Mill, tickets available at brewersofindianaguild.com, 4-7 p.m.After-parties at Historic Fell Building at 415 W. Fourth St., The Tap, Nick’s and the Atlas Ballroom.Stay connectedFollow my findings (@cscudder) and Bloomington Craft Beer Week (@BtownBeerWeek) on Twitter and use #BCBW. Keep reading the IDS this week for reviews and columns from the hottest spots for Bloomington hopheads.— cscudder@indiana.edu
(03/29/13 4:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>VALPARAISO — None of Dustin McCowan’s DNA was found on the body of his murdered ex-girlfriend, Amanda Bach. None of his fingerprints were discovered inside her abandoned car or at the railroad tracks where body was dumped. The gun that was used to shoot her in the neck was never recovered.Despite a lack of any physical evidence definitively placing him at the murder scene, McCowan, a 20-year-old from Union Township, was sentenced Thursday to 60 years in prison.Last month, a jury unanimously found McCowan guilty of first-degree murder. He was arrested for that crime on the IU campus after Bach’s body was found near train tracks almost 300 yards from McCowan’s home. One eyewitness testified that he had seen McCowan the night of the murder near where Bach’s body was found. A cellmate also testified that McCowan made incriminating comments in jail.At Thursday’s sentencing, the emotions burst inside the courtroom. The victim’s family hurled insults at McCowan and his family, calling the defendant a “coward” and a “sociopath.” Family members stormed out of the room in anger, causing Porter County Superior Court Judge Bill Alexa to silence the room twice to restore order.Bach’s mother glared at McCowan and his father as she snarled at them, mocking the convicted man. A prosecuting attorney called the McCowan family “pathetic.”For most of the hearing, McCowan kept his head down. When asked by Judge Alexa if he had anything to say, the defendant mumbled under his breath. The judge asked him to speak up.“No,” McCowan said. “I don’t think the court deserves it, your honor.”***The emotional sentencing was the latest episode in a case that has stunned Northwest Indiana since Bach’s body was discovered last September.That evening, the 19-year-old woman had been at McCowan’s home watching movies and playing Playstation 3. McCowan told detectives his ex-girlfriend left at about 1:30 a.m.At 3:23 a.m., her 2006 Pontiac was found in the parking lot of a nearby convenience store. The driver’s seat had been pushed back to accommodate “a guy or larger person,” according to court documents. Bach was petite: She stood at five feet, two inches tall and weighed only 105 pounds. McCowan is six-foot two and 175 pounds.After being interviewed by police about his missing ex-girlfriend, McCowan drove to Bloomington the next day to go to an IU football game with friends. He said he’d take a shot of alcohol in her honor, according to court documents.Late the next afternoon, her body was found 294 yards from McCowan’s house. She was lying on her back, stripped down to her underwear. Her left leg curled awkwardly behind her. The right leg was flat but bent, with the knee splayed out. Five shirts and a bra were wrapped around her right hand.Police reported that there was no evidence of a sexual assault. Bach’s cellphone was never found. McCowan’s father, a Crown Point, Ind., police officer, told police he owns a 38-caliber handgun, but it was missing from his home. A similar gun was used to kill Bach, prosecutors say. At the time of the murder, McCowan was living with his parents.During the trial, a neighbor of the McCowan family testified that on the night Bach went missing, she heard a man say “Amanda get up, come on, Amanda, get up, Amanda, get up.” Court documents say she also heard a female voice say, “I can’t believe this is happening.”One of McCowan’s cellmates testified that McCowan had bragged about killing a girl named “Amanda” and burying the gun “so good nobody would ever find it.”Porter County police have said they will begin investigating McCowan’s father, Joseph McCowan for helping his son cover up the crime. During the trial, one eyewitness testified that he saw McCowan while driving by the train tracks that night.Several of McCowan’s friends testified that they had heard him threatening Bach in the weeks before the murder. They told the jury that McCowan thought that Bach was pregnant, saying to a friend that if that was true, “I’m gonna have to kill her.”***Deputy Prosecutor Cheryl Polarek argued for the maximum sentence of 65 years. Wearing a pink bracelet on her left hand — pink was Bach’s favorite color — the prosecutor talked about how Bach was well-liked and known for her friendly smile and memorable laugh.Pink ties, pink scarves, pink shirts, pink ribbons, pink bracelets dotted the prosecutor’s side of the courtroom. Photos of Amanda in a pink top rested on the railing behind the prosecution’s table.The McCowan family filled the side of the courtroom behind the defense. Joseph McCowan, currently under investigation on suspicion of helping cover up Bach’s murder, sat in the front row closest to the wall. The prosecutor turned her attention to McCowan’s family.“Dustin McCowan is the way he is because of the adults in his life,” she said. “They are dishonest, cowardly and pathetic.” At this, someone on the McCowan side of the courtroom scoffed and stood up, storming toward the center aisle. Sheriff’s deputies blocked the Bach side of the courtroom and allowed the woman to exit the courtroom in frustration.Judge Alexa stopped Polarek and pointed a finger at the McCowans. He threatened them with five days in jail for contempt if there was another outburst from that side of the courtroom.“I do not want to see anything like that again,” he said. The prosecutor continued, saying McCowan had a history of substance abuse, including drinking starting at age 16 and smoking marijuana occasionally starting at age 16 or 17. McCowan was known for having parties with alcohol when his parents were not at home.“Witnesses testified that they took the trash,” she said, “and threw it by the railroad tracks near where Amanda’s body was found.”When defense attorney John Vouga stood to speak, he argued not only for the minimum sentence, but also defended the McCowan family.“I’m not going to stoop to levels of name calling. I’m not going to do that,” he said. “Just as the prosecution are getting to know the Bach family, we’ve gotten to know the McCowan family.”Throughout the trial, Vouga had insisted that McGowan was innocent, and during the sentencing hearing, Vouga called it a “strictly circumstantial case.”“After 25 years, I’ve had so many jury trials I can’t even count,” Vouga said after the hearing. “In a trial when there is absolutely no DNA evidence, no trace fiber evidence, no fingerprint evidence, nine out of 10 times an unbiased jury will find him not guilty.”When William Bach, Amanda’s father, took the witness stand to read a letter to the court, his hands were shaking. He had brought a photo of Amanda in a plastic frame to the stand with him.“Because of Dustin McCowan’s cowardly actions, I will not see many milestones with my daughter Amanda,” he said. “Now I will not be able to walk her down the aisle.”McCowan was looking down, clenching and unclenching his teeth.“It’s devastating to take one less plate out for dinner and see the place where she would have sat,” William Bach said. “I pray that one day he’ll tell the truth and beg forgiveness, but it takes a man to do that.”Sandy Bach, Amanda’s mother, demanded that McCowan look up and pay attention as she spoke.“I will not let you get the best of me, Dustin McCowan, I will not,” she said. “Oh, you can’t even look at me, can you?”As she described her daughter, she broke into tears. The judge stopped her, asking if she would like someone else to read the letter. “No,” she said. “I have to do this.”She continued, her hands shaking lightly as she read about how Amanda always enjoyed helping people. She wanted to be a nurse. “But because of the way she left this world, even that was taken from her,” Sandy Bach said. “I will not let you get the best of me, Dustin McCowan, I will not. You don’t like hearing that, do you?”She called him a “selfish...sociopath of a man” and an “arrogant, idiotic young punk.” Once, she let slip, “Dustin McCoward.”She began to attack other members of the McCowan family, when Judge Alexa made her stop. The purpose of a victim impact statement, he said, was to talk about the sentence itself, not attack the convicted.“Go back to your seat,” he said. “Can I just skip over all of that?” she asked. He conceded and she continued. The death penalty was too easy, she said, an easy way out. She requested the maximum possible sentence in prison.“I can’t let the way he hurt my family rule how I’m going to live my life,” she said after the hearing. “This isn’t about Dustin McCowan, it’s about Amanda Bach.”***Before the judge announced his sentence, he noted allegations that McCowan had been violent toward other women in the past. Although he had blocked those allegations from the trial, he considered them in deciding the punishment.McCowan was accused of once grabbing a girl by the shoulders and shaking her violently because he was angry. Another time, he was accused of pushing a girl down the stairs, letting her fall into the basement. He was never charged in either case.Whispers of “yes” and “should’ve been more” escaped from the Bach side of the courtroom as the judge read the sentence. The McCowans looked forward with red eyes and Kleenex in hand.After appointing a public defender to appeal the case at McCowan’s request, Alexa ordered McCowan out of the courtroom. “We’re finished with him,” the judge said. “We’re done.”
(02/28/13 5:08am)
The forgotten queen steps onto the empty stage.