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The year in review
LJWorld.com
OTTAWA HOMICIDES
Missing girl presumed to be dead
By Ian Cummings and Shaun Hittle
icummings@ljworld.com; sdhittle@ljworld.com
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
LAWRENCE HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS, from left, Candace Barnes, Carly Davis and Rhiannon Crocker look over the school yearbook that had just been distributed Thursday at LHS. The school’s graduation ceremony is scheduled for May 21. Free State High School’s ceremony is set for May 22.
House panel approves NBAF bonds By John Hanna Associated Press
TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration overcame fresh resistance from the Kansas Legislature on Thursday to his proposal for an additional $202 million in bonds to help cover higher construction costs for a national biodefense lab that state officials had pursued aggressively. The Republican-dominated House Appropriations Committee initially delayed a decision on the governor’s proposal for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility at Kansas State University. Committee members from both parties said they wanted more information about why the cost of the lab has more than doubled to $1.15 billion
since Kansas landed the project in 2009. They also wanted assurances that the state won’t face even higher costs in the future. Hours later, Landon Fulmer, the governor’s chief of staff, answered questions for the com- Fulmer mittee. Members added language to the proposal to prevent the bonds from being issued without the federal government first funding the bulk of the project, and approved the rewritten measure overwhelmingly. The back-and-forth occurred only a day after the Senate Ways and Means Committee endorsed a bill authorizing
the bonds, adding similar restrictions to assuage the concerns of some conservative GOP members. The House committee’s additions were close to the Senate committee’s wording. Even legislators with misgivings about additional bonds have said they still strongly support the new biodefense lab. It would replace an aging facility on Plum Island, N.Y., and research dangerous animal diseases and ways of protecting the nation’s food supply. Kansas has already authorized $105 million in bonds to help finance the project. State officials expect the lab to create more than 300 new jobs averaging more than $75,000 in salary and Please see NBAF, page 6A
Postal workers hoping to collect 30,000 pounds of food Saturday to benefit local residents By Adam Strunk astrunk@ljworld.com
Canned and dry foods get stored in cupboards, shelves and drawers. But on Saturday, members of Just Food hope Douglas County residents will put the goods in a less conventional place: the mailbox. The National Association of
Letter Carriers and Just Food have teamed up for the 21st annual Stamp Out Hunger campaign. “A postal service and a food bank are two very unlikely partners coming together to feed the hungry,� Just Food Pantry director Jeremy Farmer said. “It’s the coolest when something like this comes together.�
Business Classified Comics Deaths
Low: 46
Today’s forecast, page 12A
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Please see OTTAWA, page 2A
Case is a huge first test for new
Ottawa sheriff. Page 6A
Suspect has history of drug, mental problems By Shaun Hittle sdhittle@ljworld.com
As Kyle T. Flack sits in a Franklin County Jail cell awaiting multiple charges of murder, relatives of a man Flack nearly killed eight years ago paint a picture of the suspect as a troubled young man prone to mental health and drug issues. Flack, 27, served four years in prison for the 2005 shooting of Ottawa resident Steven Dale Free, 47, who was found in his front yard with multiple gunshot Flack wounds. “He was pretty messed up in the head,� said Stephanie Ingram, Free’s sister and a former friend of Flack’s mother. Ingram said Flack was prone Please see FLACK, page 2A
Please see FOOD, page 2A Farmer
INSIDE
Clouds move out
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Both organizations request that residents put nonperishable items in or near their mailboxes on Saturday. Letter carriers will pick up the items and deliver them to Just Food, 1200 E. 11th St., which will then distribute the food to Douglas County residents in need.
The search for a missing toddler, now presumed dead, continued Thursday on a rural Ottawa property where three bodies were discovered this week. The FBI and as many as 150 law enforcement officers in helicopters and planes and on horseback joined the search for the little girl’s body and other clues in the quadruple homicide. A 27-year-old Ottawa man, Kyle T. Flack, is in police custody and awaiting murder charges in connection with the killings. Lana-Leigh Franklin County Sheriff Jeff Richards said Thursday that the death toll in the case appeared to have reached four, as investigators believe the child had been killed along with her mother and two men who lived on the property at 3197
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City, county win grants The Kansas State Historical Society has announced that Douglas County and Lawrence have been awarded grants for two historic preservation projects. Page 3A
Vol.155/No.130 32 pages