St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page A001

MARY PARSH TUESDAY DECEMBER 11, 2007 FOUNDED BY JOSEPH PULITZER IN 1878 STLTODAY.COM Illinois Edition Vol. 129, No. 345 ONLINE PUNCH LINE This Punch Line cartoon features a clownish transit executive run out of town on a light rail. What are people saying about him? You supply words, then vote for a winner, online at STLtoday.com/ punchline POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD Bright idea A TASTE OF THE PAST COME BACK TOMORROW EAT COMPLETE INDEX ON PAGE A2 WEATHER TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW FORECAST PAGE B8 TOP NEWS VICK GETS 23 MONTHS Suspended Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick gets a 23-month prison sentence for running a and ghting ring. SPORTS B4 LOCAL NEWS ICE CAUSED FALLS The wintry weather on Monday mainly results in dozens of injuries suffered by pedestrians slipping on icy streets and sidewalks.

METRO D1 DOUGHNUT THEFT The man arrested after taking a 54-cent doughnut gets three months in jail not the maximum 30 years, for which he was eligible. METRO D1 SLU BASKETBALL The St. Louis U. basketball team is struggling at 6-5 as the Billikens learn a new system under coach Rick Majerus. SPORTS B1 SOY SOARS Higher soybean prices are being felt all along the food chain, from farmers to food processors.

BUSINESS C1 ELSEWHERE PICK Russian President Vladimir Putin backs his rst deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, to succeed him as president. WORLD A8 CHURCH SLAYINGS The gunman in the Colorado megachurch and a missionary training school shootings had been thrown out of the school a few years ago, police say. NATION A2 CHURCH AND STATE Does religion play a role in your choice of political candidates? Join the discussion. STLTODAY.COM/TALK Only 22 days until Highway 40 shuts down. Have you planned your alternate route? Use our maps, cameras, alerts and more online at STLtoday.com/ 2 SHEILA COLEMARGIE CALLMILDRED WALLACE DEBORAH SHEPPARD HABITUAL SEXUAL OFFENDER ADMITS SIX BISTATE MURDERS BRENDA PARSH Series of old killings solved By Christine Byers, Greg Jonsson and Heather Ratcliffe ST.

LOUIS POST-DISPATCH CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO. Sheila parents went to their graves wondering who killed their daughter. From 1977, when he got the news his daughter had been abducted and murdered until his own death in 1987, Harold L. Cole was haunted by questions. would say not a minute of the day or night that he wonder what said family friend Janet Hilderbrand of Kirkwood.

It was a frustration shared by Henry Gerecke, chief of police in Cape Girardeau from 1974 to 1981, as he tried to solve a string of brutal murders including that of Sheila Cole, a student from Crestwood who attended Southeast Missouri State University. remember her father called me and said her mother was dying of cancer and asked you tell me Gerecke said. I tell them Finally, on Monday, answers came in the decades-old crimes too late for Sheila parents, but to the relief of surviving friends and family of several women authorities say were victims of accused serial killer Timothy Wayne Krajcir. Already behind bars in Illinois as a habitual sexual offender, Krajcir was charged Monday in the Watch STLtoday.com/multimedia Watch a video of the lights on the new casino hotel. TIMOTHY KRAJCIR confesses to slayings, including that of SEMO student Sheila Cole of Crestwood in 1977, in return for life term.

LIGHTING UP THE NIGHT Lawn care rms fret as efforts to renew bill stall SAD HE EVER GOT Questions remain as to why Krajcir was repeatedly freed from prison. A5 By Diane Toroian Keaggy ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH ne thing is certain: No one will need directions to Place, the new $507 million casino and hotel complex owned by Pinnacle Entertainment set to open this month in downtown St. Louis. On Dec.

19, Place will ip the switch on the 650-foot ribbon of light that stretches up, over and down the 24-story hotel and casino complex. Commuters who have caught a glimpse of the light display during recent tests have described it as a glowing lantern. Others call it a rainbow. they said they were going to light up the night, they meant said Evelyn Cole, a hostess at Morgan Street Brewery on Landing. a doubt, it is going to light up downtown in a way never been seen The light box, as designers call it, is not neon but rather 42,550 feet of LED lights.

The display echoes the curve of the Gateway Arch and the Mississippi River and can project 16 million colors and any array of patterns. not a ashing billboard. more The 42,550 feet of lights can project 16 million colors and any array of patterns. Photos by David Carson Post-Dispatch New casino-hotel complex on Landing will have a colorful ribbon of lights stretching up, over and down its side. By Tim Logan ST.

LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Scott Muehlhauser employ any immigrants, legal or otherwise, at his landscaping equipment company, Power Equipment. But he is worried that his company, and many others like it, will become casualties of the running battle over immigration if a guest worker program that legally brings thousands of landscapers from Mexico to metro St. Louis each year is not renewed. If that happens, dozens of local commercial landscape companies that use the worker program will have to scale back dramatically next spring, including customers. Some will close.

Others will cancel contracts. They certainly be buying any new riding mowers, he said. they get their workers, I lose probably 50 percent of my Muehlhauser said. That is $3.5 million. I lose $3.5 million, I probably be able to keep my doors Exemption to H-2B guest worker program ran out Oct.

1. Now jobs, businesses are at risk, owners say. Sentence guidelines advisory In racially sensitive crack cocaine case, high court backs lighter term. By Robert Barnes WASHINGTON POST WASHINGTON The Supreme Court decided Monday that judges may impose lighter sentences for crack cocaine, adding its voice to a racially sensitive debate over federal guidelines that call for tougher penalties for crack than for powder cocaine. The crack cocaine decision was one of two Monday in which the justices, with identical seven-member majorities, reinforced their view that federal sentencing guidelines are advisory rather than mandatory, and that judges may deviate from them as long as their decisions are reasonable.

PLEASE SEE SENTENCING A6 PLEASE SEE A6 PLEASE SEE VISAS A7 PLEASE SEE MURDERS A5.