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The Prince George
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 1989
50 CENTS
Social programs attacked 5 A cocaine boom town 14 Mooney to national final 15
IL.
mmm
Ann Landers....... .........12 Family........ .............12
Bridge............. .........21 Horoscope ..... .............21
Business........... ......24,25 International . .............11
City, B.C.......... .....2,3,10 Lifestyles..... .............12
Classified.......... Movies ....... .............26
Comics............ .........26 National...... ..............9
Crossword......... .........20 Sports......... ........15-17,23
Entertainment..... .........26 Television --- .............20
TELEPHONE: 562-2441
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INQUIRY INTO OLYMPIC DRUG SCANDAL
Ben took steroids, coach testifies
JOHNSON
TORONTO — Ben Johnson knowingly took banned steroids, his coach suggested to a federal inquiry sparked by Canada’s greatest sports scandal.
Johnson, stripped of a gold medal at the Seoul Olympics last fall, decided in 1981 he would begin a steroid program, Charlie Francis said today in sworn testimony.
Asked if he believed Johnson and other runners in his track club had followed through with the drug program,
Francis replied:
“Yes, I believe they had taken them and taken them as directed.”
Johnson, 27, has denied he knowingly took the steroids found in his urine sample after he won the 100-metre dash in Seoul.
Francis said five of his track stars, including Johnson- and Angella Issajenko, used banned
BACKGROUND; PAGE 15
anabolic steroids. He also suggested — without naming her — that American Florence Griffith Joyner, the sweetheart of the Seoul Games, has used the muscle-building drugs.
The other steroid users on his track team, Francis said, were: Desai Williams, Tony Sharpe and Molly Killingbeck.
Issajenko, 30 — a key member of the Canadian track team which came under suspicion after Johnson tested positive for steroids in Seoul — began using steroids about 10 years ago, Francis said.
He said Issajenko first got steroids from an unidentified Toronto doctor and later got the muscle-building drugs from Bishop Dole-giewicz, a former Canadian shot putter.
A Toronto newspaper reported last October, after the scandal broke in Seoul, that Issajenko said both she and Johnson had taken steroids for years. Her husband said later she had been misquoted.
Francis did not identify Griffith-Joyner by name but pointed to a graph chart displaying her world record of 10.49 seconds in the 100-metre-dash.
“It would have to wait another 50 years to get this performance” without steroids, Francis said.
“This girl would have beaten the great Jesse Owens (1936 Olympic star) by four feet,” he added, still pointing to Griffith-Joyner’s mark.
Griffith Joyner — who won three gold medals in Seoul — announced her retirement from amateur sports at a tearful, hastily called news conference in New York last Saturday. She said she wanted to write and act.
Francis, speaking in a confident, measured tone in a hearing room crowded with journalists from around the world, admitted he took steroids when he was a sprinter and alleged widespread use by Olympic athletes from the United States and other countries.
He said steroids had been used by athletes at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and he saw “extensive use” of the drugs when he ran for Canada at the 1972 Munich Games.
Anabolic steroids were not banned by the International Olympic Committee until the year before the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal.
Francis, 40, said he got a prescription from a doctor and used steroids for three weeks before the 1973 national championships.
“I made the decision to use ana-bloic steroids based on my own information without the knowledge of my coach,” he said.
He alleged widespread use of steroids in Munich — remembered for the terrorist attack that killed Israeli athletes — citing an American hurdler, a U.S. discus thrower and an athlete from New Zealand.
None of these Olympians was identified immediately by Francis.
The latest phase of the inquiry — specifically dealing with the Johnson scandal — got off to a slow start Tuesday after commission lawyer Robert Armstrong promised track athletes will admit to using banned drugs when they are called to testify.
Wenzel and Lisa Randall. The festival gives aspiring young musicians a chance at musical scholarships and puL lie recognition. Runners-up will attend the provincial festival held this year in Chilliwack.
Citizen photo by Brock Gable
ROARING
RECORD!
All that jazz
Members of the Prince George Senior Secondary Jazz Ensemble are saxing it up in preparation for the Prince George and District Music Festival, which starts Thursday and runs until March 18. From left are Tom Tomkin, Peter Straub, Ingrid
Cars not plugged in overnight may have been seized by fright when March roared in today, louder than ever before.
This morning’s record low was -29.7, breaking the March 1 record of -28.9 from 1972.
If the old line, “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” holds true, it’s going to be a nice spring, and none too soon for people and vehicles hit hard by the cold.
Parliament
session
postponed
Southam News
OTTAWA — With their crucial economic strategy still up in the air, the ruling Tories revealed Tuesday that a new parliamentary session was being postponed almost a month until April 3.
And, in other announcements, Mulroney set in motion an overhaul of his personal staff and extended Gov. Gen. Jeanne Sauve’s term in office.
Sauve, whose five years as governor general would have been up in May, has agreed to stay on until Jan. 1, 1990, the prime minister’s office said.
“I know the Canadian people will be extremely pleased that Madame Sauve has expressed her willingness to continue in office for this additional period,” Mulroney said in a news release.
There was no explanation of the decision and a spokesman for the prime minister said he could not discuss why Sauve was asked to remain at Rideau Hall.
The shake-up of Mulroney’s personal office staff elevates Bruce Phillips, a former broadcaster who is currently director of communications in the prime minister’s office, to the post of senior adviser. Four other appointments to the PMO were made public.
The announcements came as the Tories, who sent MPs home on Christmas Eve after a hectic month of debate on free trade, stepped up preparations for a new session of Parliament.
The Conservatives, re-elected with another majority Nov. 21, had been expected to recall MPs to Ottawa March 6.
But with senior cabinet ministers trying to weed out billions of dollars worth of spending and come up with new tax policies, the Tories are not ready to produce a throne speech and a federal budget yet, government sources said.
Both the Liberals and NDP expressed disappointment with the postponement.
“Obviously the government is drifting,” said Liberal House leader Herb Gray. "We think the government doesn’t have an agenda. It doesn’t have its act together.”
NDP caucus chairman Audrey McLaughlin said, “We want to be back in Parliament to hold this government accountable — to have this government explain what their policies will be.”
FORT FRASER SLAYING
Skull leads to conviction
er said in his summation of the case for the jury.
“If one of the pieces doesn’t fit, or if there’s a hole, that’s a doubt,” which would lead to a finding of not guilty.
Walker’s summation Monday was interrupted when one of the jurors, suffering from food poisoning, had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance.
The trial resumed Tuesday with 11 jurors, which is allowed under the Canadian Criminal Code in situations like this.
Kelt’s summation for the jury
Virus
VANCOUVER (CP) - A virus has broken out in salmon at two hatcheries in Washington state just south of British Columbia, forcing officials to destroy three million young salmon and one million eggs.
Viral hemorrhagic septicemia surfaced in coho at Neah Bay, Wash., and in chinook on Orcas Island, in the San Juan Islands.
The virus hasn’t been found in Canada but federal fisheries officials warn fish farmers in British Columbia “should carry out rigorous testing” to see if it is present in their stocks.
Ron Ginetz, federal fisheries aquaculture director, said the virus is prevalent in European stocks of Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout.
He said Canada uses extensive screening procedures and bans Atlantic salmon imports from sites other than Scotland.
Ginetz said salmon raised in fish farms are under stress at the best of times.
“If I were an Atlantic farmer in Washington I would be concerned,” he said. “I share that concern with Canadian farmers, too.”
“Clearly the fact the agent was located in stocks not too distant from B.C. waters would hold impli-
detailed the Crown’s case: two fractures in the skull that a pathologist said were inflicted while Williams was alive, and the medical opinion the fractures could not have been self inflicted, the evidence that she was not dressed when left to decompose in the gravel pit, plus the testimony of witnesses who had seen Williams and Cunningham that day.
“She was someone who was seen and was noticed, part of a community, part of an extended family, not a transient passing through,” Kelt said.
cations for the stocks on southern Vancouver Island,” he said.
There is no evidence on the source of the outbreaks at Neah Bay and Orcas Island, but U.S. officials note Atlantic salmon from Europe, where the disease is wide-
The Crown told of the events leading up to her disappearance May 4, 1985, the time she was last seen, with Cunningham, and his showing up in Prince George driving Williams’ car a few hours later.
The jury had the choice of finding Cunningham guilty of murder, uilty of manslaughter, which is omicide but not deliberate, or finding him not guilty.
Cunningham will be sentanced April 26 in Vancouver. He is currently serving a life sentence for Bauming’s murder.
trout
spread, are farmed in the area.
Jerry Grover, U.S. Fish and Wildlife associate manager, said there is no scientific proof the disease, which was detected last November but identified only recently, came from the Atlantic stocks.
CHILDREN'S FESTIVAL
Ticket office jammed
A lineup for Canadian Northern Children’s Festival tickets, for schools only, started at 7 a.m. today and the place was still bedlam at 10 a.m. a festival spokesman said.
Those jamming the office were representatives of schools and school districts — the first group to be offered tickets.
Individual ticket sales will be offered for family members March 8.
Family memberships are given for $25 tax-deductible donations, which qualify families for early ticket sales, advance mailing of the festival brochure and, in the spirit of the festival, each family gets four red noses to wear at. Fort George Park during the festival, from May 24 to 28.
Sales to the general public will be March 9.
The reason for the traffic jam at the festival office is simply that last year’s inaugural festival was an unqualified success. People have been anxious about the second festival ever since.
A separate society was been formed and offices at 9-1839 First Ave. were taken, separating the festival from Studio 2880 which started it.
More information about tickets or the festival program may call 562-4882.
kills salmon,
by KEN BERNSOHN Staff reporter
An investigation that started when a dog dragged home a human skull almost two years ago ended at 9:10 p.m. Tuesday when a Supreme Court jury in Prince George found Thomas James Cunningham, 31, guilty of manslaughter.
The skull, left on the porch of a Fort Fraser home in April, 1986, was identified through X-rays and dental records as that of Mary Beverly Williams, a 32-year-old mother of three who had been missing since May 4,1985.
After the skull was discovered, the RCMP found Williams’ skeleton in a gravel pit nearby, with her jeans, coat and shirt stacked a few feet away.
According to both Crown counsel Glen Kelt and defence attorney Randy Walker, the charge of second-degree murder brought against Cunningham was largely circumstantial. No one saw the murder, and the former Prince George resident, who was convicted last September of the murder of Jay Bauming of Port Coquitlam in 1980, didn’t tell anyone he had done it.
“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle,” Walk-
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