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Thursday, October 24, 2013
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CAKE IS FIRST SLICE of Pumpkin Festival
Bombing suspect may pin blame on brother By BRIDGET MURPHY and MICHELLE R. SMITH The Associated Press
populated the lawn of the DeKalb County Courthouse with them. Their pumpkins were submitted in categories such as “Happy and Fancy” or “Weird, Ugly and Scary,” among others. Sycamore resident Sarah Davis entered the “Weird, Ugly and Scary” category that featured a pumpkin chomping on a smaller pumpkin wearing a pained expression. “It took about an hour and half, maybe,” she said. “And we used a lot of toothpicks.” Former Sycamore resident Lauren Boryc’s sons, Jack and Timothy, displayed several pumpkins for the contest, which were submitted into the “Pumpkin Adventures” theme category. The tagline for one of Jack’s pumpkins was “May the Adventure be With You.” “Jack is really into Star Wars and Angry Birds, so we decided to tie it into Pumpkin Adventures theme,” Lauren Boryc said.
BOSTON – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers may try to save him from the death penalty in the Boston Marathon bombing by arguing he fell under the murderous influence of his older brother, legal experts say. The outlines of a possible defense came into focus this week when it was learned that Tsarnaev’s attorneys are trying to get access to investigative records implicating the now-dead brother in a grisly triple slaying committed in 2011. In court papers Monday, federal prosecutors acknowledged publicly for the first time that a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev told investigators that Tamerlan participated in the unsolved killings of three men who were found Dzhokhar in a Waltham apartment Tsarnaev with their throats slit, marijuana sprinkled over their bodies. The younger Tsarnaev’s lawyers argued in court papers that any evidence of Tamerlan’s involvement is “mitigating information” Tamerlan that is critical as they preTsarnaev pare Dzhokhar’s defense. They asked a judge to force prosecutors to turn over the records. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 20, faces 30 federal charges, including using a weapon of mass destruction, in the twin bombings April 15 that killed three people and injured more than 260. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in a gunbattle with police days later. The government is still deciding whether to pursue the death penalty for the attack, which investigators say was retaliation for the U.S. wars in Muslim lands. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the defense may be trying to show that the older brother was the guiding force. “If I was a defense attorney and was seeking perhaps to draw attention to the influence the older brother had in planning the bombing, I would use his involvement in other crimes to show that he was likely the main perpetrator in the Boston bombing,” Dieter said.
See PUMPKIN FEST, page A4
See MARATHON BOMBING, page A4
Photos by Rob Winner – rwinner@shawmedia.com
Marianne Vogel (left) and Bart Desch cut and serve cake Wednesday during the opening ceremony at the Sycamore Pumpkin Festival.
It was made to feed 1,000; attendees submit pumpkins for competition By FELIX SARVER fsarver@shawmedia.com SYCAMORE – A giant cake popping with pumpkins attracted dozens of people wanting to get a slice Wednesday. Enough of them had gathered in Sycamore that some parents decided to shoulder the weight of their children so they could glimpse the cake that marked the opening ceremony of the 52nd annual Sycamore Pumpkin Festival. Only Savanna Dean got the first slice. Savanna’s “Pumpkin Adventures” became the theme of the festival, and her mother, Cindy, was happy for her daughter, who came to the festival in a cowgirl costume. “It’s very exciting for all of us,” Cindy Dean said. “I’m very proud.” While Savanna managed to win one contest of the festival, dozens of other people came to the festival’s opening ceremony Wednesday in hopes of winning another contest – the pumpkin
Cole Roach, 7, of Davis Junction, arrives with his decorated pumpkin. display. The festival was inspired by Wally Thurow, affectionately called “Mr. Pumpkin,” who used to show decorated pumpkins on his lawn in the 1950s. Thurow was able to get the Sycamore Lions Club to sponsor the first festival as a way of channeling the creativity of children in the city with a pumpkin display contest. The people who brought pumpkins of their own creation Wednesday had
Catalytic converter thefts starting to hit DeKalb County By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI jduchnowski@shawmedia.com Bob Noble’s repair shop replaced a catalytic converter last week for a woman who had the vital part stolen from her car while she was working at Target. Noble, who owns Midas of Sycamore, charged her about $250, but replacement costs can range from $150 to $1,000, depending on the vehicle involved and how much damage the
thieves cause to the exhaust system by cutting the part away. “You really don’t see it too much in DeKalb County,” Noble said. “You see it more in Chicago, especially around the airports. But Chicago’s coming this way.” Area police released a Crime Stoppers bulletin Wednesday reporting that nine catalytic converters were stolen from locations in DeKalb and Sycamore Oct. 17. Thieves often slide under the car and use a bat-
Voice your opinion Has your vehicle ever been burglarized? Vote online at Daily-Chronicle.com. tery-operated saw to cut out the catalytic converter, which they might sell online or as scrap metal. Catalytic converters, required in all vehicles made in the United States since 1975, use precious metals to convert toxic
gases, including carbon monoxide, into less harmful gases. If one is stolen from a vehicle, it’s likely safe to drive the car to a repair shop – so long as the exhaust system isn’t dragging on the ground – but the vehicle will be noticeably louder and shouldn’t be driven long distances, Noble said. Stealing a catalytic converter can take less than 5 minutes, and the parts can be hard to identify once they are gone, DeKalb County Chief Deputy
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Gary Dumdie said. Listings for used catalytic converters are prevalent on sites such as eBay. “They might have a part number on them, but once they are stolen from a car, they’re not very traceable,” Dumdie said. He urged DeKalb County residents to call police if they see unusual activity in local parking lots. “If they see someone lying underneath a vehicle, call it in,” Dumdie said.
Anyone with information about the thefts should contact DeKalb County Crime Stoppers at 815-895-3272 or email crimestoppers@ dekalbcounty.org. Crime Stoppers will pay a cash reward of up to $1,000 and reports can be made anonymously.
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