Epilogue: News Bullets - The Wheelman
By Duane Swierczynski
NEWS BULLETS
Briefly … CITY/REGION
Cement foundation poured for New Jersey’s children’s museum
After countless political delays and bitter turf squabbles, the new Children’s Discovery Museum in Camden, NJ, took one step closer to reality as workers laid the museum’s thick concrete foundation. “The first kids will be running through the front doors in about seven months,” promised wunderkind developer Jeffrey Greenblatt. “This will breathe new life into the dead urban center that is Camden.”
Briefly … CITY/REGION
13thdead Perelli associate … linked to mystery slayer?
The mob wars in Philadelphia continue to heat up this summer, even though members from both the Perelli and Barone families deny they’re feuding. The latest victim: 45-year-old Manny Namako, a suspected arsonist and bookmaker, found dead in the bathroom of his South Philly row home. “The police need to investigate this for what it is: a madman with a rifle preying on innocent businessmen,” mob lawyer Dan Behuniak told reporters yesterday.
Officially, police refuse to acknowledge the rumors that a vigilante dubbed “Mr. K” has been systematically erasing alleged wise guys for the past nine weeks.
But one law-enforcement insider confirms: “Yeah, there’s somebody out there. He’s pissed. And he’s a good shot, too.”
CITY/REGION
Strange odor disturbs summer visitors to NJ kids’ museum
“Like old fish and cheese … ick!” says Alison Eaton, 10, of her July visit to the Children’s Discovery Museum.
Kids are discovering things, all right. They’re discovering how adept their noses are at detecting foul odors.
For some unexplained reason, the brand-new museum is inundated with an odor that one security guard—a Vietnam War veteran—could only compare it to “the stench of bloated bodies floating along the Mekong Delta.”
“We have the best environmental forensic analysts in the country working on it,” responds Jeffrey Greenblatt, the young, troubled developer who has watched multiple projects fizzle at the last moment. This, however, could spell the breaking point for Greenblatt, real-estate analysts say, as well as the end of new development in Philadelphia or Camden for years to come.
Briefly … CITY/REGION
$100 from Wachovia heist recovered
LAS VEGAS, NV.—Police made an arrest today in the months-old Wachovia bank heist after a Philly resident used a hundred dollar bill to pay for beer and pornography magazines in a convenience store.
Dylan McManus, 20, aroused the suspicions of the clerk when he insisted he was a “high roller from Philadelphia” and didn’t need to be carrying I.D. for beer. The clerk took the bill, then called the FBI, who traced McManus to a motel in Laughlin.
Previously, McManus had been employed as a security guard at Park-o-Matic, a park-it-yourself lot based in downtown Philadelphia.