Bulletin Daily Paper 04/19/11

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What an a-peel-ing veggie

Time to get on track

Get to the heart of appetizing artichokes

Find a running facility in Central Oregon • SPORTS, B1

AT HOME, E1

WEATHER TODAY

TUESDAY

Sunny and cool High 51, Low 20 Page C6

• April 19, 2011 50¢

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Asked to defend Flaherty, AG’s office plans interviews By Hillary Borrud The Bulletin

The Oregon Department of Justice plans to interview Deschutes County employees and officials as part of a routine process to determine whether to defend District Attorney Patrick Flaherty against a lawsuit filed earlier this month by three former prosecutors whom Flaherty fired. The interviews could take place later this week, although the Department of Justice has not informed the county which em-

ployees and officials it wants to interview, Deschutes County Legal Counsel Mark Pilliod said Monday. An attorney for the Department of Justice told the county that Flaherty had asked the department to represent him, Pilliod said. Neither Flaherty nor the DOJ could be reached for comment Monday. Meanwhile, Deschutes County is in the process of hiring outside attorneys to defend against the lawsuit. See Flaherty / A3

Bend woman accused of molesting autistic son Deschutes County District Attorney Patrick Flaherty has asked the state Department of Justice to defend him in a lawsuit by former deputy district attorneys.

By Nick Grube The Bulletin

A 48-year-old Bend woman has been indicted on charges alleging she molested her 8-year-old autistic son while allowing a Michigan man she met through an online dating site to watch a live stream through a webcam. The woman allegedly performed the sex acts on her son at the behest of the Steven Demink, 42, who had identified himself as a trained psychologist and convinced her it would be a good way to teach the boy about sex. The woman was arrested in January by the

Marvels, loss swirl in wake of tornadoes

‘A nightmare of limbo’ for Meyer family

By Kim Severson New York Times News Service

ASKEWVILLE, N.C. — For all the deaths and broken bones and flattened houses, there were still some wonders of good fortune packed into the 10 minutes it took for the last of a great roar of tornadoes to chew through this rural corner of the state. There was Glen White, 24, who found the strength to push up a wall that had fallen on five residents of a group home. There was the married couple who were thrown into their backyard as the storm exploded their home. They landed close enough, battered and bruised, to hold hands. And there was Molly, a graying donkey who for years has starred in the town Christmas pageant. People say they saw her lifted into the funnel cloud when the storm hit Saturday night. They thought she was a goner. But Sunday morning, her owner, Jake Dunlow, 75, found her on her back in a ditch about 300 feet away. A day later, she was grazing in her own pasture, oblivious to the splinters of seven mobile homes all around her. Yes, 11 people died in those dark and deafening 10 minutes. Dozens were hurt, and homes were destroyed. As people picked through the mess and showed up with water and fried chicken at temporary shelters Monday, everyone seemed to marvel that a milewide tornado that blew through this land of peanut fields and chicken houses with 165-mph winds didn’t do worse. See Tornadoes / A4

Bend Police Department as a result of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation of Demink. That agency believes she is just one of at least seven women across the country whom Demink directed to sexually assault their children from 2009 to 2010. At Demink’s request, the women sent him photos and videos of their abuse via the Internet. To protect the identities of their victims, whose ages range from 3 to 15, The Bulletin has decided not to name any of the women. See Molestation / A4

Sandy Meyer, right, with Audrey and Jay Erbes at the Erbes’ wedding in 1991. Audrey Erbes worked with Meyer for many years at Syntex, a pharmaceutical company.

With Sandy Meyer’s body still missing, apparent murder-suicide baffles friends, family By Sheila G. Miller • The Bulletin

Sandy and John Meyer, shown on their wedding day in May 1997, moved from California to Bend in 2001. In March, Sandy Meyer was reported missing; John Meyer committed suicide a week later, and Bend Police now consider the case a murdersuicide. But family and friends say they can’t rest until they find Sandy Meyer’s body.

PALO ALTO, Calif. —

O

n a quiet side street here two weeks ago, children walked home from school in the warm air. It was, in most respects, a typical spring day. But parked in front of Dave Conde’s small home

was a maroon Volkswagen Touareg with Oregon plates. It’s the car Conde’s mother, Sandy Meyer, was last seen driving before she disappeared more than a month ago. It was found abandoned March 10 in an Old Mill parking lot. In the weeks since, Bend police have called the 72-year-old’s disappearance the result of an apparent murder.

Sandy’s husband, 71-year-old John Meyer, committed suicide a week after reporting her missing. Since then, police have revealed gruesome details in the case: a substantial amount of Sandy’s blood found in heating ducts between the kitchen and the dining nook at the Meyers’ home, the orange purse that John said she was carrying when she left home hidden underneath the house. But while police believe her husband murdered Sandy, her body is still missing, as is the answer to a question gnawing at Conde and other family and her friends: Why? “We’re waiting for the bomb to drop. What secret is there that somehow fueled something so inexplicable?” Dave Conde said. “None of this makes sense.”

‘We couldn’t want for a better mom’ By all accounts, Sandy was a kind, sweet person who worked hard to give her sons, Dave and Chris, a good life. Born in Williamsport, Pa., and raised on the East Coast, she became a flight attendant as a young woman. Her parents moved to California, and she joined them there around the time her first son, Chris Pries, now 47, was born. She was briefly married to her son Dave Conde’s father. Conde, now 42, said they divorced when he was still an infant. From then on, Conde said, Sandy devoted herself to her boys, often working two jobs to support the family. See Meyer / A6

Submitted photos

To tug hearts, music first must tickle the neurons New York Times News Service Jim R. Bounds / The Associated Press

Mary Grady sits in a neighbor’s yard in Askewville, N.C., on Sunday. Her home was destroyed.

The other day, Paul Simon was rehearsing a favorite song: his own “Darling Lorraine,” about a love that starts hot but turns very cold. He found himself thinking about a three-note rhythmic

pattern near the end, where Lorraine (spoiler alert) gets sick and dies. “The song has that triplet going on underneath that pushes it along, and at a certain point I wanted it to stop because the story suddenly turns very serious,” Simon said in an interview.

INDEX

TOP NEWS INSIDE JAPAN: Nuclear workers rely on robots as radiation levels increase, Page A3

“The stopping of sounds and rhythms,” he added, “it’s really important, because, you know, how can I miss you unless you’re gone? If you just keep the thing going like a loop, eventually it loses its power.” An insight like this may seem purely subjective, far removed from anything a

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scientist could measure. But now some scientists are aiming to do just that, trying to understand and quantify what makes music expressive — what specific aspects make one version of, say, a Beethoven sonata convey more emotion than another. See Music / A6

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