IT BRISTOL HERALD COURIER Tuesday, October 11, 1977 Page 5 Break Before Hauling The Bodies Off Photos By Tim Cox The Mountain Rescue Workers Take A A Solemn Group Of Volunteers Leaves The Wreckage Can Be Continued From Page search was underway by 11. Arnie Land, director of operations at Vertiflite Aviation at Lonesome Pine Airport, said an employe there got a telephone call from Colley at 8:15 a.m. Sunday for a weather forecast and fueling information. However, the plane never showed up at the airport. Later that night, Land said he was called by Meade's wife to inquire if the plane had landed yet because she was told the men might encounter some headwinds on the way home, necessitating a stop for fuel.
While she was on the phone, Land says he thought he heard Fleming's plane call in and asked another aircraft for verification, but couldn't because of some confusion. He told Mrs. Meade the plane should be landing shortly, believing the call came from the Fleming aircraft. Later, some of the families' friends who drove to the race were contacted after they arrived home. The friends said they hadn't seen any of the four men at the race and a search was then started.
Land said airport personnel had no reason to be alarmed when the plane didn't stop there in the morning for fuel, because, as often happens, flight plans are changed. Kyle said Colley was an experienced pilot and was retired from the State The Bodies Were Recovered From A Heavily Wooded Section Of Indian Creek Mountain Crash Fatal To Four Area Men Leaves A Virginia State Trooper And Rescue Worker Search Through The The Crash Site With The Bodies. Wreckage Be Seen In The Background. Prison A Home For Illegal Businesses The high cost of paying loan sharks, there are also someone to smuggle the drugs is prison robbery gangs and blamed for the big markup. rapists.
Pimps line up sexual The drug dealer feels his encounters with willing prison profession is a normal hom*osexual inmates. reaction to the environment. In an effort to curb robberies, "The only way to survive here officials now require that all is to have a hustle," he said. inmate property, such as "Some guys deal drugs. Others televisions and radios, be mar ed steal from the kitchen and sell with identifying numbers.
food. Other guys do paintings hom*osexual assaults and and sell them. Everyone has activities have fallen in recent something. You have to." years. Prison officials credit Robert Landon, head of adult increased visits with wifes and services for the corrections female friends as well as social department, calls these functions, such as Saturday criminals the "prison mafia." night dances.
He estimates they compose less Robbery gangs in various than 5 per cent of the entire institutions still threaten or beat prison population. inmates until they surrender Edward Murray, a former personal belongings, such as State Penitentiary security clothing, cigarettes or radios. assistant now heading the Although victims could turn in 3 Staunton Correctional Center, these prison robbers to knows prison crime exists but authorities, they are often afraid agrees with Landon that only a to do so. small percentage of inmates are Burglary teams have also involved. plagued institutions.
He said many prisoners are as Two inmates are commonly anxious as correction officials to involved in the thefts, explained curb it. a prison guard who asked not to "Not every inmate in the be identified. system is involved in drugs, rape He said one inmate serves as a and robbery," he said. "Just as "hawk," watching for guards, you read about civic groups that while another "fishes," snaring want to clean up their items out of a locked cell with an neighborhoods, there are improvised fishing rod. inmates who want their jails Investigation of felonies at cleaned up." state correctional facilities are Landon said the inmates in- handled by the State Police and volved in such crime as drugs the correction department's and robbery were often involved Bureau of Investigation.
in similar activities while on the Edward J. Waters, director of street as free criminals. the investigative bureau, "What they had on the outside estimates about 20 new cases they try to get on the inside," he each month are referred to his said. office, including inmate In addition to drug dealers and grievances, assaults and drugs. 18 Corporation Commission's Division of Aeronautics.
He said Colley also held an airlines transport license. Mullins is survived by his wife, Mrs. Patty S. Mullins; 2 daughters, Malissa Mullins and Amanda Mullins, both of the home; his mother, Mrs. Bessie Mullins, Clintwood; 1 brother, Elbert A.
Mullins, Clintwood; and 1 sister, Mrs. Kathleen Rasnick, Clintwood. Miller Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. Fleming is survived by his wife, Mrs. Margaret K.
Fleming; 2 sons, Dana Farrell Fleming and David Lee Fleming, both of Clintwood; his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Verlin Fleming, Abingdon; 1 sister, Mrs. Shirley F. Davis, Coeburn; and his paternal grandmother, Mrs.
Leafey Clay, Clintwood. Miller Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. Meade is survived by his wife, Linda Sue Meade; 1 daughter, Miss Stacy Lynn Meade, Pound; 1 son, Douglas, Pound; his parents, Dewey and Clorene Meade, Pound; six sisters, Mrs. Jackie Skeen, Mrs. Peggy Johnson and Mrs.
Linda Gardner, all of Stanford, Fla, Mrs. Sandra Elma, Wise, Mrs. Betty Robinson and Mrs. Patricia Pearce, both of Hilton, N. one brother, Donald Meade, Pound.
Baker Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. RICHMOND (UPI) The prison loan shark talks about bad credit and claims he doesn't break anybody's fingers. The drug dealer insists he's performing a public service by peddling emotional escape from the pressures of prison life. The loan shark and the drug dealer are among the small percentage of inmates involved Second In A Series in profitable but illegal businesses even though confined for long terms in the Virginia correctional system. They agreed to talk privately about their life and businesses behind prison walls, provided their identities were withheld.
Other sources confirmed their involvement. Both inmates take big chances to net the few hundred dollars they can ma in a good week. If caught and prosecuted, they can be given additional sentences and transferred to more restrictive facilities. "How big a loan shar am the first inmate said, mulling over the question. A big smile spread across his face and with the pride of a successful businessman he said, "Well, put it this way.
I'm among the top five in here." His rates are high, far above that allowed by law. For a $10 short term loan, an inmate must pay him back $15, he said. For a $100 loan, the prisoner is required to pay back $175. Money is not allowed in state prisons. So the loan shar often arranges the loan on the outside.
With the aide of street contacts, he has the money delivered to the inmate's friends or family, whoever needs the money. The friends or family pay the loan shark bac through the same contacts, always keeping the money outside the prison. Some inmates who don't pay back loans are assaulted, but this loan shark, afraid of a transfer to another institution, insists he never resots to violence. "No, I don't break fingers," he said. "I don't want to go to Mecklenburg," a maximum security prison recently opened for the state's most violent inmates.
"If I go there, I'm out of business," he said. The loan shark contends fear of a bad "credit rating" prompts most inmates to repay their loans promptly without the need of violence or threats. "If a guy doesn't pay, the word gets around," he said. "'He doesn't get any more money." But still he frequently takes an added financial safeguard by requiring collateral. "I've got a $250 television set upstairs," he said of one unpaid loan.
"Blac and white. Do you want to buy it?" Corrections officials have tried to stop the drug traffic in prison, but the drug dealer suggests he's doing everyone a. favor by selling marijuana and talwin, a pain killer that is popular with inmates. Besides, the dealer says a few guards occasionally moonlight. by smuggling drugs into the prisons.
During the past few UPI Telephoto Prisoner Spot Checked With Metal Detector years, a few guards have been charged with selling drugs to inmates, lending credence to his story. "Being high maes this whole place more bearable," he said. "If it wasn't for drugs, this whole place would blow up." As to the motivation of the guards who smuggle drugs, called "mules" by inmates, the dealer says: "They do it because they are hungry and greedy." Last spring a food service employe entering the penitentiary was found to have illegal drugs hidden in his boot. He was charged with possession with intent to distribute. Another source of illegal drugs is visitors.
Correction officials eep an eye on all personnel and have increased searches of visitors, but the drug traffic ing continues. Talwin, which is commonly called T-21, is broken down by inmates and injected into their systems. The pills, which sell for 15 cents each in drugstores, costs $5 a pill or three for $10 in prison. Marijuana, another prison best seller, goes for about $50 an ounce, about twice the street price for the same quality..
