The Michigan DailyT
Vol. LXXXVI , No. 64-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Friday, August 12, 1977 Ten Cents Twelve Pages
VA staffers offer new info;
seek Congressional inquiry
By KEITH B. RICHBURG
T w o Veterans Adminis-
tration (VA) H o s p i t a l
nurses, part of an employe
g r o u.p supporting Filipina
Narciso and Leonora Perez,
will travel to Lansing today
to present information to a
I a w y e r for the Michigan
Nurses Association (MNA)
that they hope will lead to
a congressional probe of the
VA poisoning case.
The employe g r o u p has
been soliciting signed affi-
davits from any VA workers
with "any factual informa-
tion" that would "encour-
age a congressional investi-
gation."
"THE TWO OF us who are go-
ing have things to say that the
lawyer will be interested in,"
said Mary James, head nurse
on the VA's fifth floor wing.
James claims VA Staff Chief
Dr. Martin Lindenauer's narrow
definition of "respiratory ar-
rest" may have made the num-
ber of arrests (56) in the sum-
mer of 1975 seem more abnor-
mal than it was.
The other nurse going to
Lansing today, Eleanor Feather,
will tell of breathing failures
still occurring at the VA, ac-
cording to James.
The employes, however, insist
that none of the current breath-
ing failures are at all suspici-
ous. Asked if the hospital was
having more breathing failures
than normal, James replied "not
when you consider the hot
weather we've been having."
There has been speculation
that the 1975 breathing failures
could have been caused by hot
weather, speculation that led
one of the defense attorneys at
the trial to question a witness
about the lack of air condition-
ing at the VA.
THE EMPLOYES, the first
organized group of h o s p i t a l
workers to voice support for
Narciso and Perez, having been
trying to find witnesses to an
apparent breathing failure three
weeks ago, when Staff Chief Lin-
denauer allegedly asked the doc-
tor on call to alter the death
certificate.
One hospital worker, who ask-
ed not to be identified, told the
Daily that the doctor "wrote
'respiratory arrest' on a death
certificate and Lindenauer told
him to change it.
The source said Lindenauer
instructed the doctor, a new, in-
tern, to change the death cer-
tificate to say 'cardiac arrest,'
s a y i n g "respiratory arrests
don't happen here anymore."
THE DOCTOR in question did
not deny that Lindenauer asked
him about a death certificate,
but the doctor said he dismissed
the incident. "I was a new in-
tern at the time and it was my
first death certificate," the doc-
tor said. "He (Lindenauer) just
wanted me to be absolutely
certain."
The doctc- insisted that he
was not "told" to change the
death certificate, and that he
was free to list "respiratory
arrest" as the cause of death if
he felt sure about it.
Lindenauer is on leave from
the hospital until August 15 and
could not be reached for com-
ment.
Pat Thomas, a nursing assist-
ant and member of the employe
support group, said the doctor
told her about the incident with
Lindenaiter and "he seemed
more uptight than upset."
"HE (THE DOCTOR) told me
in front of two medical students.
We want to get an affidavit and
have all of us who know sign it
and send it (to the MNA attor-
ney)," she said.
The MNA was the first group
supporting Narciso and Perez
to call for a congressional in-
See VA, Page 7
State may hike 'U' funding
By DENISE FOX
The House- College and Uni-
versities Committee yesterday
tecommended increased funds
be provided to the state Depart-
ment of Education and increas-
ing the number of students in-
cluded in guaranteed student
loan programs for this coming
academic year.
The recommendations came
at an emergency meeting called
by the Chairman of the com-
mitee, state representative,
Jackie Vaughn (D-Detroit).
The increased funding is con-
tingent upon approval by House
Speaker Bobby Crimm, and
Chairman of the Appropriations
Committee, Dominic Jacobetti,
Vaughn said.
VAUGHN SAID the imme-
diate gravity of the rising tui-
tion cost compelled him to call
the meeting although the legis-
lators are in summer recess.
"The whole idea is to see
what we can do at an emer-
gency situation," Vaughn said.
We are trying to suspend the
ruies and regulations; put it on
top priority and get it through."
University President, Robben
Fleming said anything to im-
prove the financial aid would
be helpful, but expressed doubt
that increased aid could be
funded so close to the academ-
ic year.
"I WOULD think it's pretty
late to have appropriations for
it this fall," he said.
Fleming said the committee
meeting was an outgrowth of
a, meeting in Lansing where
people connected with a num-
bet of different universities
were asked to discuss the prob-
iems of higher education,
"Rapid rise in tuition is one
of Lhe great problems," he said.
VAUGHN SAID the universi-
ties have raised tuition to re-
flect increasing costs, saddling
middle and lower income fami-
lies with a load they cannot
really carry.
"College is being priced be-
yona, their reach. Without some
relief, education will become
even more unavailable to the
masses, Vaughn said.
he added that many students
are forced to go to school part-
time or drop out because they
cart meet the cost.
HARVEY GROTRIAN, Asso-
ciate Director of the office of
Financial Aid, at the Univer-
sity, said he believed the uni-
versity was successful in meet-
See STATE, Page 10
Police nab 'Son of Sam
suspect, manhunt ends
NEW YORK (R) - The greatest manhunt in
New York City history ended yesterday with the
accused .44-caliber slayer consigned to a mental
ward. Outside the court, a sidewalk crowd de-
manded his life be forfeited, chanting, "Kill!
Kill!"
The seizure of the so-called Son of Sam, said
by police to be responsible for six murders, came
as he reportedly planned a monumental blood-
bath to climax his dark career.
PAUNCHY, bland-looking David Berkowitz, 24,
an Army veteran who worked as a $13,000-a-year
postal clerk, was quoted as saying he planned a
machine-gun raid on an unselected but presum-
ably crowded discotheque in the Hamptons, the
Long Island summer haunt of the wealthy and
socially prominent.
Police said Berkowitz, who was a New York
City auxiliary policeman for three years in the
early 1970s, told them he wanted to "go out in a
blaze of glory."
An unmailed letter to Suffolk County authori-
ties and a map of Long Island beaches reported-
ly were found in Berkowitz' car after his arrest
Wednesday night outside his apartment house
in Yonkers, a city of 550,000 adjoining New York
City to the north.
AT A NEWS conference, Police Commissioner
Michael Codd said that a $35 parking ticket hung
on Berkowitz's car near the scene of the last
murder and a tip from a source in Yonkers
were key factors leading to his arrest. Codd also
revealed for the first time that Berkowitz had
left a fingerprint on one of two earlier notes that
fell into police hands.
Berkowitz went before Judge Richard Brown
in the Brooklyn Criminal Court shortly before
noon. He was charged with the latest of the six
slayings, that of Stacy Moskowitz, 20, last July
31 - two days pas the anniversary of the first
.44-caliber murder.
He was also charged with the attempted mur-
der of her boyfriend, Robert Violante, also 20,
who may have been blinded for life by the killer's
gunfire.
OTHER CHARGE : included assault and pos-
session of a deadly weapon - the .44-caliber
See POLICE, Page 6
David Berkowitz, 24, of Yonkers, N.Y., was booked yester-
day on second degree murder charges for the killing of
Stacy Moskowitz. Police believe Berkowitz to be "Son of
Sam," who has killed six persons and wounded seven in
the last year.