Family Friend

The school counselor, teaching a class on "Good Touch, Bad Touch" in December 1990 warned the female students about the things child molesters do. "Eddie did that," a 9-year-old girl shouted. The counselor then met privately with the girl, who said Edward Lord, 31, of 28th Street near Tasker, a friend of her parents, had forced her to have sex with him on several occasions. "This man violated the trust the parents placed in him when they left their daughter in his care," said Assistant District Attorney Yvonne Ruiz yesterday, after a jury convicted Lord of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and corrupting the morals of a minor.

AMID the familiar music of the ice-cream man, kids playing in the street and the other sounds of summer in and around Philadelphia, many people brought along a couple of friends to keep them company on nights when they went out to sit on their steps or in their backyards. Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn dropped into the neighborhood each night and on Sunday afternoons, giving folks a couple of hours of baseball and conversation. Though it's played without a clock, much of baseball lends itself to time and conversation.

A Chester County man was convicted yesterday of robbing a family friend of $14,500 that the friend had been saving to return to Puerto Rico and buy a house there. After deliberating for about 12 hours over two days, the Chester County Court jury convicted Domingo Negron Jr., 27, of stealing the money that Guillermo Rivera, 54, had saved over seven years working as an assistant cook in a Kennett Square mushroom camp. "I knew him since he was born," Rivera testified Wednesday through an interpreter.

A California man charged with molesting the daughter of an Abington couple while visiting them over the last two Christmas seasons faces a preliminary hearing today in Glenside District Court. Abington police arrested James Sheehan "Jimmy" Dean, 48, of Cypress, Calif., before a Christmas Eve service Monday and charged him with aggravated indecent assault and two counts each of indecent assault and corrupting minors. He is being held in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility after failing to post $500,000 cash bail.

Rich and Sue Petrone knew from the red hair. That was their son, Daniel Rohrbough, lying on the ground outside the entrance to the school that bloody Tuesday. He almost got away. The quiet, 15-year-old sophomore had been shot in the back as he was running from the school after holding the door for some 80 other escaping students. While other families counted the anxious hours, the Petrones knew Danny wasn't coming home. That night, Sue Petrone went into the room of her only son and gathered up his dirty laundry, said family friend Jim Riss.

The Rhawnhurst couple considered Karl Margulies, 61, a trusted friend. So they allowed Margulies to care for their 12-year-old son while they went bowling Wednesday evenings from January through March 1998. On each occasion, Margulies sexually molested the boy repeatedly, Assistant District Attorney Christopher Mallios said yesterday. The boy, now 13, said the assaults began on Jan. 12, when Margulies came into his bedroom while he was "watching my favorite cartoon. It happened every Wednesday night.

There was sadness, and there were regrets. Cory Erving's oldest brother, Cheo, 27, apologized for sometimes setting a bad example for his younger sibling. "You looked up to me," Cheo said to his absent brother. "I apologize for some of the things I showed you that were not the right things. " His sister, Jazmin, 23, sobbed as she talked about "the only little brother I had. " "I took Cory's life for granted," another brother, Julius III, 26, said. "I promise I won't take anyone else's life for granted.

It's going to take a lot of luck for police to find out who killed ex-cop Steven Alexander, whose severed arm was found in a Trenton Dumpster. It would help if they find the rest of his body. Alexander's arm was found Monday, two days after he was last seen leaving his Northeast Philadelphia home. So far, Trenton police have few leads and have made no arrests. But they are looking into the possibility that Alexander, 56, a well-known gambler in Atlantic City casinos, may have been killed because of a connection to organized crime, said Trenton Police Capt.

They went back from whence they came. John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were returned to the misty sea off of Martha's Vineyard yesterday, their ashes cast into the choppy waters during a mournful ceremony near where they were killed in a violent plane crash six days ago. Into a southeasterly wind, blowing better than 12 knots, the Coast Guard cutter Sanibel ferried members of the victims' families past...

Andrew Fasy is chairman of the Committee to Preserve Ocean City On Tuesday, Ocean City residents voted overwhelmingly to reject a Bring Your Own Bottle (BYOB) ordinance that would have allowed beer, wine, and malt beverages to be brought to local restaurants. The proposal was a classic case of substantial risk far outweighing a very limited and very dubious reward. Ocean City is one of the most successful destinations along the Jersey Shore because of its long-standing reputation as "America's Greatest Family Resort.

Despite my love for our miniature dachshund, Mr. Lucy, I refuse to pile-on the story concerning Mitt Romney's treatment of his Irish setter, Seamus. By now the facts have been widely circulated. In 1983, then 36-year-old Romney packed his wife and five sons into the family station wagon for a 12-hour drive to his parents' cottage in Ontario, Canada. Romney fashioned a windshield to a dog carrier and then strapped the crate to the roof of the car. Midway into the drive, there was a cry "Gross!"

ATLANTIC CITY - A former Atlantic City official jailed for his role in a sex-video blackmail scheme has died. State corrections officials said Ronald Callaway, 55, died Saturday at a Trenton hospital. The cause of death was not disclosed. Callaway, also known as Jihad Q. Abdullah, was serving his term at South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton. Callaway, his younger brother and a family friend were convicted in the blackmail scheme masterminded by another brother, former City Council President Craig Callaway.

A tough kitty and an accidental secret agent are at the top of this week's DVD releases. Puss in Boots, Grade B-plus: Antonio Banderas' brilliant voice performance makes Puss a star. It's not just hearing macho words coming from such a small character that works - it's the actor's performance. He sells this script with the enthusiasm of a telemarketer on speed. Salma Hayek also provides verbal punch. Her first foray into voice work is the cat's meow. In a hard combination to get right, she delivers power while giving the character a softer edge.

IN SIDNEY Aronchick's eyes, everybody was equal. It didn't matter if you once ran the Soviet Union or were president of the United States. When Sidney got a chance to meet Mikhail Gorbachev at the National Constitution Center in September 2008, as the former Soviet leader received the Liberty Medal from former President George H.W. Bush, you might have thought they were old pals. Sidney put a hand on Gorbachev's shoulder and informed him that his father had come from Minsk.

POLICE OFFICER Ray Keo, the first Cambodian-American to work in the Philadelphia Police Department, suffered through the horrors of the "Killing Fields" period in his native country. His father was shot to death execution-style with other men in their rural village in Battambang province by the Khmer Rouge during the terrifying 1975-79 reign of dictator Pol Pot. Keo was just 7 when his dad was killed. Fast-forward years later, and Keo began working in the Police Department in 1993, then married a young, pretty Cambodian-American woman.

UPPER TOWNSHIP, N.J. - With its curious sign that read "BOTTLES & DEVICES" leaning against a tree in the yard, the old farmhouse on Route 9 was just another odd Shore landmark to many beach-bound motorists. But pull into the unpaved driveway and venture inside the house's adjacent shop and nearby barn and you were met with a trove of 18th- and 19th-century antiques - and by the Peech family, whose members had spent decades restoring and selling the curios and relics, many gathered from Philadelphia estates.

UPPER TOWNSHIP, N.J. - With its curious sign that read "BOTTLES & DEVICES" leaning against a tree in the yard, the old farmhouse on Route 9 was just another odd Shore landmark to many beach-bound motorists. But pull into the unpaved driveway and venture inside the house's adjacent shop and nearby barn and you were met with a trove of 18th- and 19th-century antiques - and by the Peech family, whose members had spent decades restoring and selling the curios and relics, many gathered from Philadelphia estates.

It was a long-held dream come true for Kano Williams when he opened his Island Vybez Jamaican Restaurant in August on Federal Street in East Camden, and he came up with a shrewd way to boost his business - giving away bottled water with each delivery. The marketing gimmick might have cost the Jamaica native his life: As he waited in his car for one of his cooks to bring out water for a delivery he was making on the afternoon of Oct. 5, Williams, 30, was shot and killed at close range by a man police say was a friend.

A Deptford woman was indicted Wednesday on assault and weapons charges for allegedly beating her boyfriend's wheelchair-bound father with an ironing board, burning the man with an iron, and biting him on the neck during an argument, according to the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office. Dawn M. Deputy, 32, and the victim's son, Christopher J. Mood, 25, lived with Daniel Mood, 60, in Deptford, where the beating took place on June 23, officials said. The younger Mood told authorities he was outside the house during the alleged incident.