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HEADLINES Clemency denied
TIM WESSELMAN ATLANTA — The state Board of Pardons and Paroles deliberated barely an hour Friday before denying clemency to Carl Isaacs, who is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday for the 1973 murders of six members of the Ned Alday family in Seminole County. The decision quashed the latest and perhaps last appeal for the nation's longest serving death row inmate and brought Seminole County's Alday family what one member called a "small bit of justice." "It is a long time coming. ... It's some closure," said 38-year-old Susan Chambliss, one of Ned Alday's granddaughters. The Pardons and Paroles Board heard first from Isaac's lawyer, who asked that his sentence be commuted to life without parole. Then, in a separate proceeding later in the day, the board met with several members of the Alday family. Both sessions were closed to the public. Nine Alday family members traveled to Atlanta to appear before the board, saying later they planned to be in Jackson for Isaacs' execution with a group of about 60 people. The killer is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Alday family members won't actually witness the execution. But, said Nancy Blizzard, one of Ned Alday's daughters, "We will know when he takes his last breath, and that will be good." The Board of Pardons and Paroles has granted only seven of 43 clemency requests it has heard since Georgia reinstated the death penalty in 1973. Isaacs was convicted as one of four men responsible for the execution-style killings of Ned Alday, his brother Aubrey, Ned's three sons, Jerry, Jimmy and Chester, and Jerry's wife, Mary. Mary Alday was beaten and raped, then shot to death. The murders occurred May 14, 1973, as members of the farming family came in from the fields — one or two at a time. According to the application for commutation of Isaacs' sentence filed with the board by his attorney, John R. Martin of Atlanta, it would be fundamentally unfair for Isaacs to be the only one of four people involved in the slayings to be executed. He disputed notions that Isaacs was the evil ringleader of the four prison escapees, saying Isaacs' older half brother, Wayne Coleman, was just as responsible. Coleman was initially sentenced to death but won a sentence of life without parole after three of the four defendants, including Isaacs, won new trials in the mid-1980s. "He did a monstrous thing, but he is not a monster," Martin told reporters before the parole board hearing. "There are reasons for what happened." Isaacs lived a harsh and deprived childhood, Martin wrote in the application, with abusive, alcoholic parents who eventually abandoned the large family. Martin also told reporters three jurors in Isaacs 1988 retrial in Houston County now support clemency. One juror, identified in an affidavit as Constance Chancellor, said she still wishes the jury could have sentenced Isaacs to life without parole — an option it did not have in 1988. After speaking to the parole board in a closed hearing for about an hour, Martin said board members appeared to give consideration to his arguments. "They were very interested in his (Isaacs') background and history. They were very interested in whether it was fair for him to get a death sentence and Wayne Coleman not to get a death sentence," Martin said. "All of them were very interested in what we can do to save children who are at risk." Isaacs, Coleman and George Dungee each killed one or more Alday family members, Martin said in his application. A fourth defendant, Isaacs' brother Billy, who was 15 at the time and did not pull the trigger in any of the killings, testified against the others in return for a lighter sentence of 20 years. Martin did not take issue with Dungee's life sentence for the murder of Mary Alday. He said Dungee is mentally retarded. But Coleman, serving life without parole, was six years older than Carl Isaacs and just as much a leader of the group, according to Billy Isaacs, Martin argued. Now 49, Isaacs was 19 when the murders occurred. He is not the same person he was then, Martin said, noting that his client has cancer and, due to the removal of his bladder, wears a colostomy bag. "He is a threat to no one," Martin told reporters. "Killing him will bring no comfort to the Alday family or anyone else. It will be a brutal act of no purpose." Blizzard and Chambliss disagreed. "We are not vindictive people," Chambliss said. "But we have gone through a lot and this is justice for us. What little bit we can get, we will take." Alday family firm against clemency
TIM WESSELMAN ATLANTA — As she faced a roomful of reporters and tried to restrain her emotions, Susan Chambliss exhaled with stifled exasperation when asked if she had been swayed by Carl Isaacs' written plea for clemency. Isaacs is set to be executed Tuesday for the 1973 murders of six of Chambliss' relatives. She and other members of the family were in Atlanta Friday, when the state Board of Pardons and Paroles considered whether to commute Isaacs' death sentence to life without parole. The board deliberated only about one hour before leaving the death sentence in place.
Was Chambliss, a granddaughter of Ned Alday, moved by stories of the killer's bitterly deprived and abusive childhood? Or the hours of rape Isaacs endured in a prison riot less than a month before the murders of Mary Alday and five Alday family men? "No," she said firmly. "He brutally raped and murdered Mary. If he got raped, he got a little bit of a taste of what he gave her. "He has said if he had the opportunity to do this again, he would. So no, we feel no remorse, no sympathy for Carl Isaacs. It is time for him to be executed." The past three decades of waiting for justice and living their lives in the shadow of the high-profile case has taken a toll on the family, she said. "We need justice. We need peace. We need closure. It has been too long and we need to go on with our lives," she said. Isaacs' execution, scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, will come one week and one day shy of the 30th anniversary of the murders of the Ned Alday family at their farm just outside of Donalsonville. Family members were not swayed by an account — contained in a clemency application filed by Isaacs' attorney with the state Board of Pardons and Paroles — of the hardships of three decades on death row or an illness that has left Isaacs in frail health. "Who cares," Chambliss said. "He had 30 years to live that my family didn't have. And they were good people." The crime cost not only the lives of six people but ultimately forced the sale of a farm that had been in the family for 200 years, Alday family members said. Chambliss recalled community members' coming to the farm in the weeks after the crime, without being asked, to plow fields and hoe peanuts. "The farmers were all gone in the family," Chambliss said. "So the farm was left with no one to tend it." Paige Seagraves, another of Ned Alday's granddaughters, told reporters Friday she was angry that Isaacs' attorney would protest his sentence. "I'm just amazed that any person on this planet could defend such a ... he is not even a human being. If I had something to say to (Isaacs) it would be: May God have mercy on your soul because you had no mercy for my family," Seagraves said. Alday family members said it was against their beliefs to be vengeful. "We are not out seeking revenge," Seagraves said. "This is not revenge. This is justice."
Tim Wesselman can be reached at (229) 888-9351. Angry arrows miss target
BRIAN RUSSELL ALBANY — It wasn't us.
Misdirected vitriol caused by confusion over a news story about a whites-only prom at Taylor County High School has local groups scrambling to point out the 60-mile divide between the Dougherty County and Taylor County school districts. Fielding hateful telephone calls and e-mail messages, Albany officials are trying to explain that Albany isn't in Taylor County — there is no separate white prom here. The Associated Press story carrying an Albany dateline, which was broadcast Thursday and appeared online and in newspapers Friday, has drawn national attention, much of it to the wrong town. The original story, written by Elliott Minor in Albany and published on Page 4D of Friday's Albany Herald, points out that Taylor County is about 60 miles north of Albany. Herald editors decided to remove the Albany dateline from the AP story to avoid confusing their readers. However, an editor in New York, according to Minor, changed the description of the location to 150 miles south of Atlanta in later versions — Albany's distance from Atlanta. The AP resent another version on Friday evening, restating the distance from Atlanta to Taylor County at 80 miles. The Albany dateline remained. Even after the mix-up was explained to callers Friday, some people still didn't believe that the Dougherty County School System doesn't handle Taylor County High School, said Lana Stuart, who was answering telephones in the school's public information office. People were commenting that members of the school board are racists, Stuart said when boiling down the misdirected comments the school board had received. The Dougherty County School System received its first angry telephone call late Thursday and had received about a half-dozen others by midafternoon Friday, Stuart said. People answering the phones have been directed to explain to the callers they have reached the wrong county and give the phone number for Taylor County schools. From what Mayor Tommy Coleman has heard, area groups have been receiving calls from people making very disparaging remarks about Albany, he said. The mix-up was brought to Coleman's attention shortly after the story hit the national news wires, he said. People who knew that Albany wasn't in Taylor County told Coleman they had heard or read versions of the story that made it appear that Taylor County High School was in Albany. Coleman has been on the phone with The Associated Press and CNN to try to get them to change the dateline on the stories to distance Albany's name from the story, he said. It is important for people to know that this isn't going on in Albany so the negative stigma attached with the separate proms isn't in the minds of people looking to relocate their businesses, he said. While excited the story has received national attention, Minor said he regrets that people reading the story have jumped to conclusions before looking at a map to find out that Albany isn't in Taylor County. The dateline for Associated Press reporters is dictated by where the story is written. Minor decided he could gather information and write the story about the separate proms — a practice Taylor County has had for 32 of the past 33 years — from his desk in Albany, he said. Last year's prom, which Minor also covered, was the first year they had a single, integrated prom. The event is privately held and not sanctioned by the school district.
Brian Russell can be reached at (229) 888-9360. Takach report reveals little
BRIAN RUSSELL ALBANY — No new information was uncovered when the Dougherty County Police Department released its preliminary report Friday on a police shooting that left a 64-year-old Albany man dead. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation hasn't contacted the Dougherty police in the past couple of days and is still exploring the circumstances of the shooting death of Bernard Charles Takach, said Jeremy French, the county's assistant police chief. Preliminary reports by the GBI indicated the two officers who fired on Takach acted appropriately. The three officers who responded to Takach's 911 call and were present during the shooting — Lt. J.L. Sexton, Officer C.R. Hurt and Officer R.L. Curry — are doing as well as could be expected following one of the most traumatizing events an officer can face, French said. The three men are still at home on administrative leave. According to the county police report, Sexton and Curry were the first to respond to Bernard Takach's 911 call but were unable to get anyone to answer the door for about six minutes. Hurt arrived just before Cindy Takach, Bernard Takach's wife, answered the door. Cindy Takach told the three officers that her husband was drunk and would not let her leave the house, at which point they followed Cindy Takach into the home, the report said. As the officers approached Bernard Takach, they saw he was armed with a handgun, the report said. The report said the officers identified themselves and ordered Takach to drop the gun. Instead, Takach pointed his weapon at officers as he ducked for cover into the laundry room. Curry and Hurt both fired at Takach. Sexton said he didn't fire his weapon because Curry was in his line of fire, the report said. Sexton said that after Takach was shot, officers removed the loaded and cocked Ruger .22-caliber single action revolver from his grasp, the report said. The three officers then rolled Bernard Takach onto his back and attempted to perform first aid. Cindy Takach has disputed claims that she told police her husband was drunk and would not let her leave. However, she does not deny her husband was armed when he was shot by police.
Brian Russell can be reached at (229) 888-9360. From students to Olympians of the sciences
LEE ANN LIVESAY ALBANY — Several hundred third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students from Dougherty County schools got to spend Friday at the Parks at Chehaw, but the break from the classroom wasn't all fun and games: They were participating in the fourth annual Science Olympiad. School officials said the Olympiad is similar to a "field day of science experiments," with each student competing in one of nine events. The day helps students "realize again that science is fun," said Mary Pat Beckum, Dougherty County School System's elementary science supervisor. "They get to experience the joy side of education." Teachers, too, were glad to get out of the classroom for a day and help the science book "come alive" for their students. According to several teachers, Science Olympiad events come right from the textbook, giving students the chance to learn science in "hands-on" exercises. "It reinforces the skills we teach in the classroom," said Alfredia Williams, a third-grade teacher at Radium Springs Elementary School. "The hands-on approach brings it to life." Each of Dougherty County's 16 elementary schools participated, bringing six students from each grade to compete in the day's events. These students were chosen by individual schools and had been practicing for Friday's competition. The events "prove their thinking skills," said Dorene Rojas-Medlin, the school system's secondary science supervisor. The Olympiad also gives the youngsters an introduction to physics and lessens the chance they will feel intimidated by upper-level sciences later in life. Students from Albany High Magnet School assisted in facilitating the day's events. The events included building a "bridge" out of linguini to see how much weight different designs could withstand. Students were judged based on how much weight caused the bridge to collapse. Another event was an egg drop, in which students had to create an apparatus out of straws and tape to hold an egg and carry it safely to the ground from several feet in the air. Students were judged on how close the egg fell to the target and whether it broke. Students were given an award for placing first, second or third in each event and overall awards were given to schools with the most points. Several special awards were given as well, including one for the student who displayed the most sportsmanship. Each student who participated in Friday's event was given a ribbon. "Just being here is a privilege," Beckum said. Judge tells kids it's never too early to dream
LEE ANN LIVESAY ALBANY — Superior Court Judge Willie Lockette handed down several opinions Friday, this time before a group of seventh-graders at Dougherty County Middle School. Lockette spoke to the group as part of the Dougherty County Bar Association's Law Day activities. The judge advised the young people that it's not too early to find a dream and start working toward it. He also outlined for them what it takes to become a judge and how the courtroom operates. "It's never too soon to decide what your goal is and start working on it," Lockette said. Lockette said he decided in fifth grade that he wanted to be a lawyer. At that time, there were very few black men getting college degrees, much less going to law school and becoming judges — especially in Southwest Georgia, Lockette said. People told him his goal was simply a "pipe dream," Lockette said, but he worked hard and eventually went to college, then on to obtain his law degree in 1974. He practiced law until he was elected to his position in 1996. After Lockette spoke, students asked him questions about his job. Lockette assured the students that real courtrooms operate nothing like ones on television. "Those shows on television are just for entertainment," he said. "That's not what I do. ... We do not operate in that fashion." Lockette told students his job is not only serious but often quite solemn, as when "we decide ... whose children are taken away and, unfortunately, in some cases, who lives or dies." One student asked Lockette what he considered success to be. Lockette replied that people often incorrectly judge success by how much money someone makes or other material possessions. True success is determined by "using the talents that God has given you to improve the quality of life of those around you, of those you come in contact with," Lockette said. Lockette told the students that he hopes to have a positive effect on the lives of those who come into his courtroom. "As a judge ... I look for opportunities to get them on the right track," he said. "We look first to save them, not punish them."
Lee Ann Livesay can be reached at (229) 434-8748. Friends shocked by death of Georgia student ALAN MAULDIN DAWSONVILLE — The body of a Lee County college student who died Thursday while rock climbing was discovered at a secluded waterfall in north Georgia Friday morning. Daniel "Danny" Zok, a junior at North Georgia College and State University, 60 miles north of Atlanta, died from an apparent fall at Cochran Creek Falls in Dawson County, officials said. The death of Zok, a 21-year-old cadet and junior majoring in premedicine at the state's military college, shocked students there and at Lee County High School, where he had been a well-liked wrestler and football player. "He was a terrific kid," said Kevin Dowling, Zok's high school wrestling coach. "Between his athletics, his leadership and his personality, he was the kind of kid that comes around every 20 years." Zok began his climb up the 600-foot Frosty Mountain, located a few miles east of Amicalola Falls, from a different side than his two companions and they became separated, said Scott Wallace, Dawson County fire chief and emergency management agency director. The friends last saw Zok at 1:30 p.m. Thursday and called the school and emergency officials at 4 p.m. after they could not find him. The body was found shortly before dark, but the rugged terrain and a severe thunderstorm made removing the body too dangerous for rescuers after dark on Thursday, Wallace said. A helicopter was used to recover the body, which has been sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory in Atlanta. Foul play is not suspected, but the incident is still under investigation, Wallace said. The site has been the scene of at least one other fatality from a fall 11 years ago, and another person was severely injured there three years ago, he added. "This is a very remote location," he said. "It's on U.S. Forestry Service land. Somehow, college students over the years have been able to find out about it." Dowling said that the news cast a pall over the school campus as students learned the news. "It's been a rough day," he said. "It seems unfair, although some people say God has a plan for everything. As a coach and as a friend, I'm surely going to miss him." Students in Zok's classes were allowed to postpone taking final exams Friday because of the tragedy, said Annette Lee, the college's public relations director. "It's real hard," said Maj. Richard Niekirk, assistant commandant of the military school, which has about 500 cadets in a 4,000-student body. "He touched a lot of peoples' lives. He was well-loved on campus. It's a close-knit group of people up here." Funeral arrangements were expected to be announced today.
Alan Mauldin can be reached at (229) 888-9348.
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