The Michigan Daily
Vol LXXXVi I, No. 11-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Wednesday, May 18, 1977 Ten Cents Twelve Pages
Rapist's confession called rumor'
By EILEEN DALEY
Ann Arbor police are denying reports that a man
arrested Monday morning has admitted to commit-
ting at least three of the rapes which occurred during
the rash of attacks last fall.
WJBK-TV News reported last night that Gerald
Walker confessed to committing three of the rapes
after he was arrested and charged with raping a uni-
versity student and intent to commit larceny.
Dept. Chief Harold Olson said that reports that Walk-
er admitted committing the rapes were "not true."
"We're talking to him about some other unsolved
rapes," he said, "but he has totally denied those"
(rapes last fall).
"There is a possibility he might be involved in more
rapes, there is a possibility that he is not," said Lt.
Richard Hill. "There isn't anything in this point in
time that leads us to that fact."
Walker was apprehended at approximately 11:00
a.m. Monday when police responded to a breaking and
entering call. They then discovered that the woman
who lived at the residence had been raped.
PROSECUTING Attorney William Delhey expressed
doubt concerning Walker as a suspect in the rapes.
"This one (rape) occurred in a house" he noted.
"The others were on the street. There's a lot of dif-
ference."
Delhey said that Walker did fit a rough description
of the rapist, although he added, "I stress the word
rough."
WJBK REPORTED the story of the -alleged con-
fession from information they said they received
from Capt. Robert Conn of Ann Arbor Police. When
contacted yesterday, Conn called Walker's confession
a rumor.
"I told them (WJBK) last night it was a rumor. I
got about eight phone calls after that and it seemed
to keep getting more and more distorted as it gets
down the line."
Walker was arraigned yesterday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the police's number one suspect remains
Robert Finklea, who was arrested Jan. 12 on one charge
of rape and unarmed robbery.
THE RAPE Finklea is charged with is not one of
the attacks which happened last fall. The woman he
is accused of raping was closely associated with him
for at least a month, and the attack occurred Jan. 2.
Finklea fits the description of the rapist and Delhey
said that he was still considered a suspect in the case.
Although he refused to comment as to whether he
believed Finklea was a suspect, Major Raymond Wood-
ruff of Ann Arbor Police Detective division noted,
"There have been no reported rapes of that type since
his (Finklea) incarceration."
Witness says
Perez fiddled
W' th IV tub
By KEITH RICHBURG
Special to The Daily
DETROIT-When Veteran's Administration (VA)
Hospital patient Benny Blain suffered a breathing failure
in August 1975, VA nurse Leonora Perez had been "mon-
keying" with his intravenous feeding tube, according to
the patient's sister, Betty Jean Barnett.
Barnett testified at the VA murder trial here yester-
day that Perez "started maonkeying with his IV tubes
that were hanging there. He had a bunch of tubes hang-
ing there and she was monkeying with them."
BENNY BLAIN, who had been admitted to the VA in July
1975 for abdominal pains suffered a breathing failure just minutes
after Perez was allegedly in his room. Barnett testified that Perez
"kept asking her to leave," and she had gotten no farther than a
j " waiting room down the hall when a "Code 7"-or medical emer-
gency-was called for Blain.
Blain survived the breathing failure, but died in the hospital
12 days later of complications. Perez is accus ed of injecting Pav-
ulon, a muscle relaxing drug, into Blain's intravenous feeding
tube.
Barnett also accused the VA hospital's afternoon shift of not
taking proper care of her brother. "The day shift was perfect,
and the midnight shift was," she said. Asked if she thought the
afternoon shift was incompetent, Barnett answered "I know. He
NSIDER used to tell us that they didn't keep him clean."
ground,
Vorkmen PART OF BARNETT'S testimony, made in the absence of the
dmarks. jury, was not allowed on the record. During a short recess; Bar-
nett told Judge Philip Pratt that her brother "used to kid" Perez,
- who was the nurse in charge of
him.
0 "He used to tell her that he
c r s is was going to the "Philipina Is-
lands on a honeymoon", Bar-
nett said. She said that Perez
would always ask Blain "what
cities, now it has become a replica of them. do you have against us?"
Now people come to Yosemite because it Barnett told Judge Pratt that
is run like a city," Sax said. Perez and Blain would "get' in-
WAYNE STATE University Law Prof. to little arguments," and that
Zygmund Plater, a colleague of Sax's, con- Blain had nicknamed Peres
tinued the discussion of the status of public "Puerto Rican."
lands. "Where will it lead to?" he asked.
"Why do environmentalists defend a THE JUDGE then ruled that
mountain instead of a ski slope which could ersatmosphere during ohea
serve so many more? ing" and would be highly pre
See EXPERTS, Page 9 See WITNESS, Page 7
NO, THEY AREN'T EXACTLY beating the heat with that shower of water in the back
but the "fountain" is part of the demolition of the Barbour-Waterman gymnasium. W
and others yesterday gathered to view the wrecking of one of the University's oldest lan
See story, page 3
Experts scuss land
By LORI CARRUTHERS
The Citizens' Council for Land Use Re-
search and Education's (CLURE) national
symposium on the status of land in the
United States enters its third and final day
today at Rackham.
"This symposium will raise those ques-
tions often ignored, to put these issues on
land usage in focus for us," said Janet
Lynn, CLURE spokeswoman.
YESTERDAY'S morning "agenda began
with a discussion of University Prof. Sax's
paper entitled "Personal Preferences and
Public Policy: The Dilemma of Land Man-
agement in a Democratic Society."
Sax's paper concerned itself with the
eternal problems of public land planners not
being able to please all of the people all of
the time in controlling public land usage.
Sax, in discussing this topic brought up
Yosemite Valley and land usage there. "Yo-
semite Valley used to be refuge from the