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North Adams Transcript Newspaper ArchivesDec 31 1977, Page 1

   '77 in review crime shakes City s image by Peter Gosselin North Adams it was t exactly a Jolly year for the City and its peo ple. Abut the Best that can be said is that the worst did t happen at least not to most folks the town got Back on the map and into statewide newspapers during 1977, but it was More than anything else for the discovery of the body of Carol Ann Todd a Falmouth school teacher apparently murdered in Lale 1976. There were a few spectacular fires one of which damaged the Sheralon North Adams inn unemployment was Down but the analysts said nobody should believe the figures. Most folks kept their health although the cily ends the year without an ambulance service and with four doctors ready to bail Oul of Blue shield medical insurance program. A variety of pollution problems that have vexed the Region for years appear on the verge of solution but the vexation was so great Many people Are no longer interested. Crime produced the most sensational events of the year a murder an attempted murder the discovery of a dead baby rapes and a rash of assaults on police officers by far the Saddest and most gruesome Lale was that of is. Todd whose badly decomposed body was discovered May 29 in the Forest near Monroe stale prison. The Young teacher visiting the City for a weekend disappeared from a blood spattered room of the Sheraton inn dec. 12, 1976. Although police suspected a murder search parties looked in vain for a body during the cold Winter months and in Early Spring. The two hikers who finally made the discovery said they were attracted to the victim by a foul odor. Law enforcement officials charged 30-year-old Robert a. Nimble to with first degree murder in the Case. Or. Nimblett a resident at the local prison at the time of the disappearance is now incarcerated at Walpole state prison awaiting an april trial. A North Adams native 19-year-old John j. Singer also was charged in the Case As an accessory after the fad of murder. Two months later on aug. Eileen Gillooly 53, was beaten and molested while she slept alone in her Beaver Street Home. That event coupled with a report that 16-year-old Debra Morin of 8 Secor ave. Was accosted by a knife wielding stranger aug. 7, sent a chill up the spines of Many City women. Concluded on Page 8'