Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 121

yfy yi i' T' 'f' i INSIDE SECTION 2 DuPage briefing 3 About Du Page ...7 Metrostate roundup .8 Religion 9 Almanac 10 Obituaries 10,11 Weather 12 News from i DUPAGE COUNTY along with reports from around the region. Friday, July 19, 1996 's6' MarySchmich 7 I. Hard-hit Aurora bails out 16.9-inch rainfall near national mark Sticker scof flaws display a sort of fraternal disorder t's Thursday, and it is hot, hot enough to steam the city sticker right off a Chicago windshield. The gumshoe wheels his red Caprice into a parking lot. -A Hit "I'm going to show you," the gumshoe says, "how easy it is to find these cars." The name's Rajewski, as in investigator Joe Rajewski.

J.R. to his pals. Hails from Bridgeport in the Daddy Daley days, spent 18 years with Streets and San. Now he's chief of the six-man posse that prowls Chicago's streets searching for the lowest of the low. Yeah, that's right.

City sticker scofflaws. So I'm sweating with Rajewski through the Southwest Side, hungry for the real dirt bn his detecting ways. I Jhis much I've figured out: On the stroke of midnight Tuesday, the jig was up. No hew Chicago sticker for your Chicago car? You can park, bud, but you can't hide. Not from Joe Rajewski.

Today I've got some questions. Like, Tribune photo by George Thompson Charles Chatt of Naperville Township checks the basement of his family's home on Glenoban Drive. They have no insurance. A tie satroatRom warn DuPage, Kane under water, overwhelmed what it like to make a living sticking it to scofflaws? And what kind of creeps try to scam the city out of 60 bucks? If I was honest with gumshoe No new Chicago sticker for your Chicago car? You can park, bud, but you can't hide. By Jeffrey Bits and Stacey Singer Tribune Staff Writers Dozens of DuPage County communities were drenched by -a stubborn cloudburst that swamped the Chicago area Wednesday and Thursday.

Aurora got the worst of it The river that ordinarily flows calmly and quietly through the heart of the city became a torrent of brown water Thursday, tossing tree trunks around like tooth- picks. Cars were submerged, houses flooded up to kitchen windows, and the Fox River poured over its banks, transforming the City of Lights into a chain of small lakes. Before the day was over, Aurora police were forced to patrol in dump trucks, because rising water made so-many roads impassable for squad cars. "This is a catastrophe," said Jim St. Clair, 78, who owns and -operates St.

Clair's Draperies on Galena Boulevard just east of the river. Storm water submerged much of his inventory. "I judge that there is probably 30,000 to 50,000 gallons of water in the basement I've got a lot of merchandise ruined," said St. Clair, who has run his business on the same block for 42 years. "This is the worst flooding since 1954." The sheer volume of water that drenched the city is astounding.

In one Aurora location, 16.91 inches fell in a 24-hour period about two inches shy of the national record of 19 inches set in 1979 in Alvin, Texas, according to Scott Dickson, a National Weather Service meteorologist. "Radar showed in excess of 12 inches in a large area around Aurora," Dickson said. The rainfall totals dwarfed those generated this month by Hurricane Bertha, which reportedly dumped a maximum of 4 to 5 inches on eastern North Carolina. Aurora Mayor David Pierce who had to be evacu-ated from his own home declared a state of emergency at 6:30 a.m. Thursday.

By 3 p.m., portions of at least eight main Aurora streets were still closed because of high water. Anyone trying to drive across town faced a labyrinth of waist-deep waters, submerged cars and police barricades. On New York Street on the city's east side, a semitrailer truck was stranded in waters that completely blocked the thoroughfare to Naperville. On Farnsworth Avenue, the roofs of several cars could be seen poking above the surface of muddy waters. But for area children, the del-See Aurora, Page 2 Tribune photo by Mario Petlttl Businesses in downtown By Lynn Van Matre Tribune Staff Writer It was a scene that played out Thursday in dozens of places across DuPage County: Residents waking up to water that filled yards, basements and sometimes living rooms; roads rendered impassible except by boat; businesses shut down by flooded parking lots.

"It's like somebody twisted my stomach," said Lori Loconte of Naperville, describing her feelings about the floodwaters that filled the first floor of a home she and her husband are remodeling. The work was within a week of completion. Now they will have to start over. "I started crying," Loconte said. On Thursday, Gov.

Jim Edgar declared 13 northern Illinois counties including DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Will, Lake and Cook as state disaster areas in the wake of fierce storms that dumped almost 17 inches of rain on some areas during a 24-hour period. Edgar also directed some Illinois National Guard troops to be on standby to assist in recovery efforts. The worst may be yet to come. "We are looking at near-record flood levels on streams," said Bill Morris of the National Weather Service. 'We have had anywhere from 6 to 11 inches of rain over the DuPage River watershed and we are seeing significant rises Naperville (above) face flood waters at their doors from 12 inches of rain that fell on the city.

In unincorporated DuPage County, Amy Silder (left) uses her canoe to reach people who need help. All three municipalities declared a state of emergency Thursday morning, and Edgar sent Illinois National Guard troops to Naperville to help patrol areas that were too deep under water to be accessible by police cars. DuPage County Board Chairman Gayle M. Franzen also declared a state of emergency for Lisle and Naperville Townships and ordered the opening of the Elmhurst Stone Quarry Thursday morning to collect stormwater and help control See DuPage, Page 4 -SS -ii i- tnM inniw Rajewski, I'd tell him a thing or two about the twisted minds of sticker scofflaws. I know their procrastinatin', deadline-evadin', lazy little ways.

Yeah, I know some minds like that real well. I ain't sayin who. I'll just say I know 'em, you know, too welL But I'm smart enough to keep my mouth shut and let Rajewski do the talking. "Here's a car right here," Rajewski says, hopping out of his. The perp's redder than my lipstick, a big old Buick Century.

It's got a Club lock on the steering wheel and a city sticker in the windshield. The latter's as expired as the milk in my refrigerator. There's another little decal too. It says, "Active Member Fraternal Order of Police." Rajewski snorts. 4 "Lookit, see, look at all these cars.

They all got police stickers." His tone is drier than his loafers, which by now are puddle-soaked. "If we have that many police, where are they?" He tucks an orange ticket under the Buick's wiper. It snaps against the window, a little take-that slap, and he aims for a suspicious Taurus. Rajewski knows all the scams. Questionable police and fire stickers, as if even the real Ones would stop him.

The Chicago cars with the cheap Berwyn decals. The dopes who scrape the old sticker off, imagining that no sticker is safer than a defunct one. He's heard all the excuses, too. 'The dog ate my sticker and they even bring the dog down to our office." And he's heard worse. "People yell at us.

They come out chasing us down the street. Some of 'em rip the tickets up and throw 'em at you. Or they run up to the car and drive off while you're writing the ticket. Or they say they're gonna call the papers and tell 'em we're harassing them. Harassing 'em? It's the law." He says this while sniffing out more culpritsa Ford Colony station wagon, a gold Dodge Omni, a Toyota GT, a Dodge Day-tona.

"Besides doing all this, I'm a single parent too," he says, heading toward a street of bungalows. "Son who's 10 and a daughter, she's that 8 goin' on 18, with the makeup and stuff. That's all new to me." He brakes abruptly. "Oh, there's another one." What I ask, is the psychological profile of the scofilaw? "Anybody and everybody," Rajewski says. Motive? "I wish I knew." Rajewski loves the work.

Gets him out-iside, keeps him moving. Brings big money to the city. Teaches him about streets he never knew existed. One Saturday, he was home alone and bored, so he took 10 books of tickets 20 to a book and in four hours had filled them all. 1 Rajewski enjoys the hunt though sometimes he feels guilty.

"You got to have compassion. You write a ticket and you see some lady who's 65 years old coming out of the house, you feel bad." Compassion has not deterred him from handing out 250 tickets in the last two days. Without the torrents, it would have been 700. Tha bottom line of thisJnvestigation? If you'rff a scofilaw, pray for rain. email mtschmkhaol.com Tribune photo by James Mayo end, according to the National Weather Service.

Hardest-hit areas included Aurora, where a record 16.9 inches of rain fell within 24 hours; Naperville; and Lisle. in the rivers and streams." Flood warnings remained in effect for the DuPage, Fox and Des Plaines Rivers, where waters are not expected to crest until Friday or the week- INSIDE Suspect in triple-murder to offer alibi, lawyer says Abduction suspect's past shows a strange pattern m'm 'vj rli ir i in I By Art Barnum Tribune Staff Writer Laverne Ward, one of three people charged in the triple murder of an Addison family, is going to contend that he wasn't at the scene of the murder, his lawyer said Thursday. Attorney David Dornblaser told DuPage Judge Peter Dock-ery that he intends to claim that Ward was somewhere else when motions sought by Dornblaser. Dornblaser sought unsuccessfully to have prosecutors give him a bill of particulars, a series of specific details of the crime that prosecutors intend to prove. At the same time, Assistant State's Atty.

Jeffrey Kendall told the court that he believes Dornblaser needs to further explain his plan on the alibi defense. "We will support our information about our alibi at a later date," said Dornblaser, who declined to provide details. Prosecutors have charged that Ward, along with his cousin, Jacqueline Williams, and her boyfriend, Fedell Caffey, killed Deborah and Samantha Evans at the Evans apartment and cut a live fetus from Deborah's By Tracy Dell'Angela Trihi'NK Staff Writer After Robert Russell Koppa's crime rampage hit its peak in 1980, a Cook County judge read a psychiatrist's report and concluded something was terribly wrong, court records show. Koppa was not insane, the judge told a prosecutor, but he clearly needed psychiatric help. And with that, the judge approved a plea bargain that allowed Koppa to serve one 30-year sentence for three crimes: a murder, a rape and a kidnapping.

He would spend only 13 years in prison, but he never received psychiatric help there, the records indicate. And 17 months after his release last year, Koppa stands charged this week with Kidnapping a teenager from Woodfield Mall last weekend and sexually abusing her in a pattern disturbingly similar to his earlier crimes. Although far from unusual-that 1980 plea bargain pointed to one of the justice system's weaknesses in dealing with serial rapists, especially one who hds killed his victim. "Once a rapist always a rapist" said Richard Ault a foren-; sic behavioral scientist who spent 24 years with the FBI developing profiles of rapists and other criminals. "I like the idea of putting them away a long, long Ault said.

"Rehabilitation is not an issue. What's driving these; guys is the issue." What is driving Koppa is mystery that presumably lies somewhere in his past but, whose solution so far has eluded investigators. Koppa; 47 and living in Pala-See Pattern, Page 7 the murder in which a live fetus was cut from his mother Public information about the murder of Deborah Evans and two of her children, Samantha, 10, and Joshua, 7, has been extremely limited as Dockery has impounded the court file and instructed attorneys not to discuss details of the case. Thursday's declaration of an alibi came during an open court session to argue pretrial Christian TV station survives and thrives Shirley Rose talks with a guest during taping of the WCFC-Ch. 38 show "Among Friends." Jerry Rose, Shirley's husband, is president of WCFC, Chrfago's oldest Christian TV station.

Page 9. womb. Joshua Evans was found slain See Addison. Page 2.