Incidents at 2 bridges
A duffle bag found on the Brooklyn-bound train tracks of the Manhattan Bridge by bridge workers at 8:30 p.m. Fri. May 6 caused police to stop auto and train traffic both ways until bomb squad officers determined that the bag was full of clothing. At about the same time, police in the Harbor patrol pulled a 20-year-old woman from the East River near the Brooklyn Bridge and police determined later that the bag of clothes belonged to her. The woman, whose name was not given, was taken to Long Island University Hospital in Brooklyn where she was described in critical condition.
Plead in 1986 murder
Norman Dennis, arrested near Los Angeles on March 22 for the 1986 murder of his former girlfriend, Sharon Copeland, in a shooting at Madison and Rutgers Sts., pleaded not guilty on May 3 and was remanded to jail pending a May 26 Criminal Court appearance, according to Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau’s office.
Dennis, identified as a suspect in the case, had fled shortly after the shooting on the grounds of the Rutgers Houses. He disappeared until earlier this year when police received an F.B.I. fingerprint of a Norman Kearse, who had been arrested in California in 1993, that matched a Dennis fingerprint.
The suspect admitted that he was Dennis and was extradited on April 30 from Gardena, Calif., where New York City detectives had arrested him the previous month.
—Albert Amateau
WWW Downtown Express
