The Bastrop Advertiser (Bastrop, Tex.), Vol. 145, No. 9, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 2, 1998 Page: 1 of 65
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THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1998
500
W Bastrop Sb
Murder trial
State champ
Smithville rec-center under way
t
Sunday
and th» KXAN WWhw Nataorit
Syncro Vac committed to expansion in Elgin
By Jason Suchomal
one of R<
High School
Athletics
INSIPF
WEATHER
INDEX
Representatives from Elgin-based Syncro
Vac said this week they are still committed to
expansion in Elgin despite their recent with-
drawal from a 40-acre tract of land along FM
1100.
However, the EDC also pulled its industri-
al park plans after results from the soil stud-
ies were turned in.
The 22,500-square-foot facility is being built at
First Street and Texas 95 North and will have a
variety of activity rooms.
Among the facilities included will be a basket-
ball court, a recquetball court, an exercise room, a
An apparent drug overdose
has been ruled the cause of death
in the case of 25-year-old
Tabitha Anne Selby, the Bastrop
woman found dead in her car
outside Garden Ridge Pottery in
Round Rock.
According to Round Rock
Police officials, the autopsy on
the victim pointed to a cocaine
overdose. Officials had not ruled
out the possibility of murder
until the reports were turned in.
Selby’s body was found
February 22 after she was report-
ed missing by her boyfriend on
Ely Jason Suchomal
Start Writer
By Jeaon Suchomal
Staff Writer
a high of 78 degrees and a low
of 64. Chance of rain: 30
percent.
■ Early voting in the
Democratic primary
runoff for three
county offices starts
Monday.
■ LCRA grant
program will bring
in almost $27,000 to
help three county
projects.
Jennifer Nelson, executive assistant to
Syncro Vac President Dick Shigemoto.
“We’re trying to get something off the
ground pretty quickly.”
Earlier this year, Syncro Vac announced
that it planned on expanding and adding 100
new jobs by December 1999.
The expansion was going to be tied in
with the city’s industrial park plans. The site
was to lie directly adjacent to a 40-acre tract
of land that the Elgin Economic
Development Corporation was going to use
LeMay said it is not at all
unusual for driven to leave their
vehicles in the lot overnight.
Selby’s 1992 Toyota Tercel
Defense lawyers Curtis
Garvie and Lydia Clay Jackson
have also probed jury prospects
about their attitudes on race and
inter-racial dating, among other
issues. Reed is black. Stites was
white.
In previous court proceedings,
attorneys have hinted they may
suggest that Reed and Stites were
lovers and evidence of sexual
activity is not evidence of rape,
as the prosecution argues.
DNA tests on body fluids and
other samples initially linked
Reed to Stites’ death, according
to police. The prosecution has
charged Reed with capital mur-
der in two ways—that she died in
the course of a sexual assault or
that she was killed during a kid-
napping.
Stites, who graduated from
Smithville High School, was
engaged to be married to a
Giddings police officer at the
time of her death. She was
reported missing after she failed
to appear at work for a 4 a.m.
shift at HEB food store in
Bastrop.
Later that day her body was
found near a rural road northeast
of Bastrop off FM 1441. The
pick up she was driving to work
weight room, a whirlpool, senior citizens roos, arts
and crafts and a nursery.
The site will also be available for use at special
events, such as wedding receptions dr basketball
tournaments.
The project is expected to cost over $1 million.
Roughly $500,000 of the funding is being supplied
by a grant from the Texas Parks and Wildlife. The
rest will be raised through donations.
.According Io Mayor Vernon Richards, about
$100,000 has presently been contributed.
“It’s going to be necessary for us to raise some
money to pay for it as we go,” Richards said.
Construction on the much-anticipated
Smithville Recreation Center is rolling along and
officials are hopeful it will be wrapped up some-
time next year.
Workers have laid the slab and the metal for the
the FM 1100 site after soil studies revealed
that construction could prove too costly.
The ground was determined to have a high
plasticity rate and additional foundation
work was a high probability.
Officials estimate that she
probably died on February 13,
the day she was last seen.
Round Rock Police Captain
Dan LeMay said drag parapher-
nalia was also found in the car.
The equipment also came back
positive for cocaine. Results
from a toxicoloy test are still
pending.
Selby’s boyfriend, Wayne
Mawhiney, said she went in to
Austin to ran some errands when
Body in car
apparent
victim of
overdose
Ford, only a
sophomore,
cruises to
state power-
lifting crown
Nelson said Syncro Vac is looking at other
pieces of property but does not have a
timetable set to begin or complete the expan-
sion.
The company currently operates out of a
20,000-square-foot facility that is valued at
$4 million.
The plan was to build an 80,000-square-
foot building on the expansion site.
Syncro Vac opened its doors in Elgin in
February 1996. The corporation was one of
five in Central Texas that was rated be.
500 as the fastest-growing in
the country. Syncro Vac was rated 366th,
with a 753 percent sales growth from
1992 to 1996.
12
-A
Garden Ridge, located at FM
1325 rod Interstate 35 South, has
Rock's busiest
jury selection
moves slowly
If the pattern of Monday and excused.
Tuesday holds in the days ahead
in the Bastrop courtroom of
335th District Judge Harold
Towslee, a jury in the capital
murder trial of Rodney Reed of
Bastrop could be seated in about
three weeks.
After two days of questioning
prospective jurors individually,
eight of the 12 questioned so far
remain qualified for jury service.
The judge has scheduled six jury
prospects to be quizzed daily.
The jury will be asked to
decide whether Reed, 29, is
guilty of capital murder in the
strangulation death of 19-year-
old Stacey Stites two years ago.
But questions from attorneys on
both sides suggest that the judge
may allow the jury to consider
whether Reed is guilty of the
lesser offense of murder.
A capital murder conviction
can be punished by either life in
prison or death. But the penalty
range for murder is five to 99
years in prison.
The jury will be asked to fix
punishment if they return a guilty
verdict on either crime. Most of
the potential jurors questioned so-
far have been quizzed closely
about whether they could consid-
er punishment across the entire
spectrum if a defendant is found
guilty. Those who can’t are
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McAuley, Davis. The Bastrop Advertiser (Bastrop, Tex.), Vol. 145, No. 9, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 2, 1998, newspaper, April 2, 1998; Bastrop, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1179334/m1/1/: accessed June 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Bastrop Public Library.