Wednesday Dec. 12,
2012
50 cents
Daily Corinthian Vol. 116, No. 299
2012 Christmas Basket Fund “A Community Tradition”
Basket fund tops $8,000 The spirit of giving is alive and well in the Crossroads area as donations continue to arrive daily for the 17th Annual Corinth Rotary Club/Daily Corinthian 2012 Christmas Basket Fund. The civic club and newspaper have set a $20,000 community fundraising goal this year so 1,000 food baskets can be given away to local families at 8 a.m.on Saturday, Dec. 15 at the Crossroads Arena. The total now stands at $8,085, meaning $11,915 still needs to be raised from the community as there will be no corporate match this year. Recent donations include $50 from Herbert and Patricia Hussey in memory of Mr. and Mrs. W.F. Hussey; $25 from Bailey Smith in memory of Erin Sanders; $100 from Jerry Brewer in memory of Ben Brewer; $50 from James and Dorothy Eley; and $100 from Tupelo Samples, Inc. Donations can be the perfect time to make a holiday tribute to a special person. Contributions can be made “In honor of” someone living or “in memory of” someone who has passed. They can be family or friends, co-workers, employees, bosses or even groups who have made an impact on a person’s life. All tributes will be published in the Daily Corinthian until Christmas Day. Donations can be brought to the newspaper office at 1607 Harper Road or mailed to Daily Corinthian, Attn: Christmas Basket Fund. P.O. Box 1800, Corinth, Miss. 38835.
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• Corinth, Mississippi • 20 pages • Two sections
Police search for shooting suspect BY JEBB JOHNSTON jjohnston@dailycorinthian.com
Corinth police are looking for a suspect in a Friday night shooting. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Justin Jamal Heger, 21, of Madison Street. Detective Capt. Ralph Dance said the suspect should be considered dangerous. Heger is accused of shooting Brent Asberry one time in the stomach Friday at about 11:35 p.m. at Meigg Street and Cemetery Street. The weapon was a .22-caliber pistol.
Asberry underwent surgery and is expected to recover. “From what we understand, Asberry approached the suspect about a stolen CD player,” said Dance. As they were talking, the suspect pulled the gun and fired on Asberry, he said. The shooting was reported to the Corinth Police Department after friends transported Asberry to the hospital. The suspect is described as a black male standing 6 feet 2 and weighing 150 pounds. Detective Heather Glass is in-
vestigating the case. To report information about Heger’s whereabouts, contact the police department at 286-3377 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-773-tips or on-line at crimestoppersms.com. In a separate case, the police department arrested Mitchell Allen Ratliff, 41, of Booneville, on Saturday and charged him with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was also charged with misdemeanor offenses of public drunk and open container in a vehicle. The arrest followed a com-
plaint that a man threatened a woman with a gun in the Highway 2 and North Polk Street area. Officers spotted the man, who attemptHeger ed to flee. He was apprehended and officers found the gun, a .22-caliber pistol, in his Please see SHOOTING | 12A
Liquor landslide Corinth voters approve referendum BY JEBB JOHNSTON jjohnston@dailycorinthian.com
By a large margin, Corinth voters on Tuesday said the sale of liquor is coming back to the city. With complete results, including 215 absentee ballots and 41 affidavits, the total was 2,641 (70 percent) for and 1,150 against. City Clerk Vickie Roach said the turnout of 3,791 was impressive for any city election. “It’s comparable to a highly contested primary,” she said. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen will soon begin the work of drafting an ordinance for the legal sale of alcoholic beverages in the city. “I think we’ll have everybody something to look at by the next board meeting, which is Tuesday,” said Ward 2 Alderman Ben Albarracin. “We want to move in a timely way, but we want to be cautious, too.” John Orman, a spokesman for the group who organized Please see VOTE | 2A
Staff photo by Steve Beavers
Election baliff Peck Boggs posts a sign for voters Tuesday at Corinth City Hall. Turnout was huge as voters said yes to legal liquor sales in the city.
Volunteers answer annual Angel Breakfast call BY STEVE BEAVERS sbeavers@dailycorinthian.com
Angels have answered the call. The 2nd Annual Angel Breakfast of the Boys & Girls Club of Northeast Mississippi was in need of volunteers. The public stepped up with a dozen volun-
teers agreeing to help. “They are still calling,” said unit director Christy Grice. The breakfast is set for 9 a.m. Saturday at the club on 511 Clark Street. According to Grice, the event is being held to create some family fun while also focusing
on what the season is all about. There will be such activities as crafts, story time, entertainment, photo shoot as well as the breakfast. Children are allowed to bring two guests such as a parent, grandparent, or other favorite adults. Each guest is also being
asked to provide their little one with a gift that can be enjoyed by senior citizens. The gift will serve as the admission price for guests. Gifts brought in will be placed in the club's angel tree box and Please see BREAKFAST | 2A
When it comes to meth use, there are rare good endings BY BOBBY J. SMITH bjsmith@dailycorinthian.com
(Editor's Note: The following is the second of a threepart in-depth series on the local problem of meth. Due to the nature of the content, the name has been changed.) For many people who choose to use methamphetamine, the road ends nowhere good. Everyone may be familiar with the “after” photos of longtime meth users and the haunted, goblin-like faces. Many a story ends with “then he went to jail.” Or to jail, then back home to their old habits and back to jail again. Repeat until an early death. But every now and then a person who goes down that road manages to back out and return to the land of the living. This story tells a few things about one such human being who headed down the road to ruin, but managed to turn everything around.
The problem of meth: An in-depth 3-part series When Stephen was 24 he married a pretty girl he’d liked for a long time, all the way back to high school. Before long they had a little boy, and another soon followed. He drank too much beer on the weekends, but during the week he held everything together and made it to work at the family business that was founded by his greatgrandfather many years in the past. The turning point for Stephen came when his cousin and best friend was killed in a tragic accident. It was the first time he’d experienced the death of someone close to him,
and Stephen became unhinged. He began drinking heavily, almost every night. He got in fights over trifles. He’d spend hours in the cemetery next to cousin’s grave. Many nights his truck was seen next to the cemetery gate far after midnight.
Spinning Out After a couple months of this kind of behavior – and a few ugly incidents – the wife was gone, Stephen’s children with her, and a divorce was in the works. In a house that was suddenly empty, Stephen’s descent continued. He fell in with a handful of serious meth users. To these half dozen men, mostly a little older than Stephen, using methamphetamine was the center of their existence. Stephen had a house to himself, a yen for bad behavior and plenty of extra money. It wasn’t hard to find friends such as these.
Index Stocks...... 7A Classified......5B Comics......3B Wisdom......2B
Weather......5A Obituaries......3A Opinion......4A Sports......8A
Stephen had experimented with almost every drug available in North Mississippi as a wild teenager, but this was something else entirely. His rate of use soon surpassed that of the meth veterans. The first signs that something was seriously amiss were physical. Standing just shy of six feet tall, Stephen had always been thick in the chest and strong for a man with a somewhat slender build. After a couple of months he was wiry and frail-looking. Barely past the 25-year mark, Stephen was prematurely enfeebled. His cheeks became sunken and his arms turned to twigs. He moved with the shambling gait of senescence. He suffered mentally. Somehow he escaped the flights of paranoid fantasy that plague many heavy meth users, but Stephen developed obsessive tendencies. He would become distracted for hours by mundane tasks. He’d spend a whole
night sharpening his knife collection or cleaning his floors. Everywhere he looked, he would find a million distractions, and he soon stopped going to work altogether. He had too much to do at home, and he never left. The young man never attained the stereotypical “meth mouth” sported by many users. His obsessive behavior extended to cleanliness as well, and he brushed his teeth at least 10 times a day. Stephen was so obsessed about his appearance that this, too, caused problems eventually. He would stand in front of a mirror for hours, looking for bumps on his face. When he discovered anything resembling a blemish, he would squeeze it and pick at it until finally he ended up with an ugly sore much worse than the half-imaginary pimple he started out with. He used bandPlease see METH | 2A
On this day in history 150 years ago Gen. Nathan B. Forrest sets out from Columbia, Tenn. at the head of a cavalry column of 2,500 troopers. It is his intention to destroy sections of the railroads supplying Grant’s army in North Mississippi and to break his communications with the North.