The Michigan Daily-Thurday, June 5, 1980-Page 13
Pilot flies plane
into girlfriend's
house in possible
murder-suicide
NEPTUNE TOWNSHIP, N.J. AP)-
A pilot possibly distraught over a
broken romance buzzed a suburban
neighborhood early yesterday and then
sent his twin-engine airplace crashing
into the house where his girlfriend was
staying, authorities said.
William Fischer, 31, a former flight
attendant for Eastern Airlines, was
killed on impact in what police said
may have been a murder-suicide at-
tempt. But the three occupants of the
house, including a three-year-old boy,
escaped out a window without serious
injury, police said.
FISCHER, OF OCEAN Township,
buzzed the Jersey shore home at least
seven times before the plane banked to
the left, dove through electrical and
telephone lines and rammed into the at-
tached garage, police said. Both the
house and plane erupted in flames.
A day before the crash, Karen
Woolley had signed a complaint
charging that Fischer allegedly beat
her with a hammer, broke her
television set, and tore out the telphone
in her home, Police Chief Walter
Gilbert said.
"To me, to determine that he crashed
into the house on purpose is very hard
at this time," Gilbert said. "Certainly,
it's not your ordinary plane crash."
GILBERT, WHO SAID police were
investigating the possibility the crash
was an attempted murder-suicide, said
the couple had broken up about a month
ago.
Gilbert said Fischer took off from
Monmouth County Airport at Wall
Township about 5 a.m. The plane was
owned by GardenState Aviation Co.,
and Fischer apparently didn't have
permission from the owner to fly the
plane, the police chief said. ,
He estimated the plane's value at
between $25,000 and $30,000.
GILBERT SAID HE had no idea what
prompted Fischer's alleged attack on
Woolley. The police chief said Woolley,
whose age was not immediately known,
was separated from her husband.
After the alleged hammer attack,
Woolley took her three-year-old son
Brian to stay nearby at the home of her
father, John Torchia, 49. The three
were in the Torchia home at the time of
the crash. The Torchia house was
destroyed by fire, and a nearby house
was singed by flames, police said.
Patrolman George Deane said the
plane was circling the area at a low
altitude for a short while before the
crash. He said police had received
about six calls from residents com-
plaining of the plane's noise.
Micky Bressler, Ocean Township
Public Works superintendent, said
Fischer had been employed in the
CETA program in the township's road
department since March 31. Bressler
described the victim as a "good worker
who did a good day's work."
Three saw
Jordan fail
from shot
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (UPI)-Three
persons-not just one as originally
reported-saw black civil rights leader
-Vernon Jordan fall from a gunshot
wound last week, authorities said
yesterday.
Investigators 'also said Martha
Coleman; who drove Jordan back to his
motel just before the shooting, had
agreed to take a lie detector test but
was not considered a suspect.
Jordan, 44, remained hospitalized in
serious condition but was showing im-
provement.
Until yesterday, Coleman was the
only witness acknowledged publicly by
the FBI and local police.
However, an FBI agent told the Fort
Wayne News-Sentinel two other per-
sons saw Jordan being shot and went to
his aid.
Mayor Winfield Moses, acting as a
spokesman for the police, confirmed
the report but said neither witness was
able to, give police any more infor-
mation than Coleman had provided.
TONIGH T A T
SECOND CHANCE
Boorg B di
TOM METZGER, DEMOCRATIC winner in San Diego's 3rd congressional
district primary and head of the Southern California chapter of the Ku Klux
Klan, pastes a few more banners on a youthful 'supporter while he awaits
election results yesterday.
Victory of lansmen
embarrasses Denis
FALLBROOK, Calif. (AP)-A day
after Democrats in California
nominated a local Ku Klux Klansman to
Congress, the national party chairman
assailed the/ move as "an acute em-
barrassment to me and to the party."
In ° a statement released in
Washington, John White said the
nominee-Tom Metzger-"is against
everything the Democratic Party stan-
ds for. He is a Democrat by convenien-
ce, not by ideology. He is a stain on our
political system and will not receive
one penny of party assistance nor one
iota of support."
But Metzger, a 42-year-old Fallbrook
Daily
Classifieds
(Continued from Page 12)
WANTED TO RENT
FALL-MALE Ph.D. student, age 27, looking for
apartment, apartment mate, for Sept. Prefer
Medical Campus, need parking. Call Walt, 764-
3t67 ,(day), ;95-3885 tntght k ;t", " 75L605
television repairman, said he "can win
without them" with his message that
government should first help "white,
working people."
"I WON'T SUPPORT him, and
neither will the Democratic Party,"
said Ed Skagen, the party's county
chairman who lost to Metzger.
As party leaders expressed dismay,
the state chairman in California agreed
that Metzger will be denied support of
the party to which he switched
registration from theRepublican Party
early this year.
Metzger, squeaking by with a 31s
vote margin, won the Democrats'
nomination Tuesday in the 43rd
Congressional District, one of the most
populous with almost a million people.
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