A 50-year-old Whale Gulch man was in the Mendocino County Jail, charged with assaulting and injecting drugs into and attempting to murder a 36-year-old San Francisco woman who he held against her will for five days. The woman told deputies she had accepted an invitation from friends to visit Whale Gulch on November 11 but was forced at knifepoint in Cloverdale to pay for a motel room for the night. She was taken to Whale Gulch the next day. She escaped her captors and hitched a ride to Briceland where she collapsed and was taken to the Garberville hospital. Her alleged assailant, identified as Richard Elliot Barker, also aged 50, was already in custody in the Humboldt County Jail on other and unrelated charges, but he was expedited to Mendocino County on the new charges.
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Three men, two of them from Redway, were arrested over the weekend for a burglary attempt on the Honeydew General Store. Jay William Lambert, 19, and Gregory William Townsley, 18, both of Redway, and David Wayne Harrison, 20, of Fortuna, were unsuccessful in their attempts to gain entry to the store by prying a hasp off a shed in front of the store’s service station with a lug wrench. The suspects were observed in their efforts and apprehended by the store’s owner, assisted by other residents, and held until sheriff’s deputies arrived to take the men into custody.
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The board of supervisors went on record as favoring local determination in implementing an odd-even gas rationing plan in Humboldt County. The supervisors endorsed the North Coast Supervisors Association suggestion that rural areas implement the odd-even plan on a voluntary basis.
Second District Supervisor Harry Pritchard spoke out against the governor’s plan to effect gas rationing statewide. He called the plan “a tremendous burden on the people of this county.” He noted that timber workers must purchase gas daily. The mandatory rationing plan was set to start the following week.
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The caseload of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) increased during the first month of the second quarter, according to the County Welfare Department. Children aided under AFDC increased from 131 in September to 139 in October. This figure included three children who were placed in “specialized institutional care.”
Food Stamp households went from 3,287 to 3,363, continuing the upward trend of the previous three months, which began in August. Changes in the program under the Food Stamp Reform Act and to cost of living increases applied to AFDC grants.
Medi-Cal continued to run lower than last year, but the number of cases of General Relief recipients was also on the upswing, with 43 more people on that aid over the September caseload of 157. This represented a record high for that aid category.
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A traffic stop by CHP Officer Stickles resulted in the arrest of an Arcata man on pot-for-sale charges. Officer Stickles stopped the man for speeding as he was traveling southbound on U.S 101 just north of the Mendocino County line. During the ticketing procedure, Stickles smelled marijuana and further investigation uncovered a duffle bag with more than one pound of marijuana inside.
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Rainfall for the previous week was reported at 3.29 inches, bringing the seasonal total to 28.15 inches.
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