Remember the nurse practitioner who was denied a job because she failed to pass a drug urinalysis -- the likely source of her problem being morphine derived from consumption of a poppy seed bagel? The East Baltimore community health center that had been set to hire her refused the nurse a second chance at a drug screen. Indignant, she took her job application elsewhere. After the nurse's story appeared in the Oct. 19 edition of This Just In, she received several job offers, one of which -- a position with a pediatrician in Harford County -- she's
taking. But she's giving up poppy seed bagels.
A dead man's confession
The suicide one morning last spring of an East Baltimore man apparently helped homicide detectives close the books on a 21-year-old unsolved murder. Before Robert W. Paull, a 59-year-old recovering alcoholic, shot himself in May, he mailed his wife a suicide note in which he confessed responsibility for the murder of Gary Dean Legg, a 33-year-old employee of a Baltimore glass company, in October 1973. Legg was robbed and beaten to death, his body left in the rear of his Ford station wagon. According to an Evening Sun story at the time, employees of a tire company near the docks in Fells Point discovered the car and the bludgeoned body, which had been wrapped in a bedspread.
The murder remained unsolved for more than two decades. But on May 17, Robert Paull was found, a bullet hole above his right eye, slumped on a bench and covered with a sheet in Fells Point, not far from where Gary Legg's body had been left by his killer nearly 21 years earlier.
According to "Case Closed," Jacqueline Watts' detailed account the case in the East Baltimore Guide, Paull's suicide note arrived in the mail a short time later, addressed to his wife. "I killed Gary D. Legg on Oct. 4-5, 1973," it said. "I guess you didn't think that I had it in me to do such a thing, but I did. That was in my drinking days. . . ." The note mentioned John Thanos, the convicted murderer the state executed May 17, the same day police found Paull's body in Fells Point. "When you look at life in reality I am no better than John Thanos," the note said. "I also am a murderer." The extensive news coverage of the Thanos death watch weighed heavily on Paull and his last days were filled with remorse for his crime. His wife told the Guide: "I was watching [television coverage of Thanos] and talking to myself, you know, 'They should kill that dirty murderer.' I know Bob could hear me. He was around. But I didn't know about this other thing."
Since the publication of "Case Closed," Hollywood producers have contacted Watts to express interest in the story, the likes of which this columnist cannot recall ever hearing before. At least not in real life.
Save tape, help a kid
I've been saving register tapes from Giant, Safeway and Metro for the folks at the Renaissance Institute. They're a bunch of smart-and-trying-to-get-smarter retirees who take courses at the College of Notre Dame, and as a big class project they're collecting register tapes that can be turned over to the supermarkets for computers and other education equipment. Why? They're doing it for kids in inner-city public schools. They're concerned, appropriately, that Baltimore students do not benefit from the supermarkets' gifts-for-tapes offering as much as their counterparts from the more affluent suburbs do. At the end of the collection drive, the city school with the greatest need and best attendance record gets the tapes.
If you want to contribute, send your grocery tapes to: Save the Tapes, Renaissance Institute, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, 4701 N. Charles St. 21210-2476.
The things people say
Heard on city police radio: A call for an officer at "Little Macademia Baptist Church." I'm sure the officer would have enjoyed the trip to Hawaii, but we're equally sure the dispatcher meant Little Macedonia Baptist Church. It's not in Honolulu. It's on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Heard in Centennial Park, Howard County: Guy in a pickup basketball game made a great pass to a fellow hoopster, then, reflecting on the elegant maneuver, said: "Yes! I led him like a fish to water!"
Heard this week on Baltimore radio: "She could become Maryland's first female Republican governor since Spiro T. Agnew. . . ."
Overheard at and about Cafe Hon: "It's exotic, one more weird, yuppy Baltimore thing to be studied. I like it. But, you know, it's only faux Hon."
Heard on the phone line: "This is Hon Man. Someone sprayed-painted 'Hon' on the welcome sign, and I'm sick about it."
Overheard in Highlandtown: "Happy birthday, and many reruns of the day."
Overheard in Cockeysville: "I get a Cuisinart stomach when I give blood."
What Sarah Fawcett, customer of NationsBank who objects to tellers addressing her by first name (This Just In, Nov. 1), heard yesterday when she called the bank's customer service office, based in Virginia: "Sarah Fawcett? Are you THE Sarah Fawcett? Well, hello! We've got six floors of customer representatives down here and copies of [This Just In item] are all over the building."
Heard from Parris Glendening, during meeting with black ministers: "As you may have noticed, I happen to be a white male."
Billboard on Interstate 83, near Maryland-Pennsylvania line: "FREE O.J.!! . . . with donut purchase."