Mantua

By the time he was 42, Miles Mack had become a neighborhood icon in Mantua, running basketball games and changing lives at McAlpin Playground. Then a bullet took his life in that very park. When the idea of naming the park after him was proposed after his death in September, his mother, Sandra Mack, didn't see much use in it. But as the months passed, she came to believe that having his name there would remind kids that there was at least one person who always had their back. "Miles loved the kids in Mantua," she said.

Bob and Kathy Corsini were thrilled this week when Gov. Corzine signed a bill named after their deceased son, but they're not stopping there. "Daniel Mackay's Law" requires authorities to inform the relatives of disabled or deceased car accident victims where the car can be found. It also caps the amount that can be charged to those families for towing and storage. The Corsinis, of Mantua, pushed for the law after their 18-year-old son was killed in a car accident on I-295 in 2006.

The failing economy likely contributed to the voters' decision in one Gloucester County town not to pay a little extra to keep a scenic golf course from being plowed under for houses. Mantua Township voters rejected a two-penny tax hike last week that would have gone toward the purchase of the Maple Ridge Golf Club, a place with rare South Jersey hills, a stream, a lake, and a variety of wildlife. The closed 112-acre golf course straddles the border between Mantua and Deptford, which also is exploring ways to raise revenue to preserve the land.

Before he was shot Thursday night at the basketball tournament he organized, Miles Mack threw himself on top of his players to protect them, police said yesterday. So far, however, none of those he was willing to die for have been willing or able to identify his murderers, police said. Even though as many as 200 people witnessed two shooters kill Mack and 19-year-old Darren Hankins - the likely target of the brazen assault in the city's Mantua section - police said they had no motive and no solid suspects.

Miles Mack was gunned down at a basketball tournament that he'd founded to save and serve a community he once referred to as "my people. " In that quick and brutal act, a city starved for role models lost one of its best. And a good man who had stepped up to make a difference was apparently victimized by the same tough guys and "hard-headed" kids he had worked all his life to help. "He was on the front lines," said Rick Young, a friend and the chief executive officer of the Mantua Community Improvement Committee.

The news was unthinkable, Clearview Regional High School principal Kevin Kitchenman said. Students arrived at the Mullica Hill school yesterday to discover that a popular, talented junior had been killed in a car crash overnight. Police say Jessica Skelnik, 17, of Harrison Township, died shortly before 9 p.m. Tuesday when a sport-utility vehicle driven by her brother slammed into a tree in Mantua Township. "Most of the students didn't know anything until they got here," he said.

A 23-year-old Mantua man was gunned down near his home yesterday afternoon, making July - with five days left to go - the deadliest month this year. This month, 38 people have been killed; the year's homicide tally so far is 223. The city is on pace to have its worst annual homicide rate since 1997, when more than 400 people were killed. Charles Hewett, who lived on Mount Vernon Street, was shot multiple times at 33d and Wallace Streets in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia about 2 p.m., police said.

The screams are said to be shrill, like those of a woman. But the source of the nighttime shrieks heard from time to time in Wenonah Cemetery in Mantua, Gloucester County, is a mystery. "It's a piercing sound," said Jacqueline Blythe, who lives across the street from the cemetery. "It's something big. " Some say the cemetery is haunted. Perhaps by Revolutionary War soldiers who supposedly fought on the surrounding land. Others believe a big cat - a bobcat or even a cougar - emerges from the wooded marsh behind the cemetery and caterwauls among moonlit tombstones.

A Glassboro woman pleaded guilty yesterday to reduced charges in a 2003 car crash that killed a 61-year-old Mantua woman who was her parents' neighbor. Erin Lewis, 22, had been charged with vehicular homicide and aggravated assault, each a second-degree offense that carries a maximum 10 years in prison. She also was charged with drug possession. In exchange for a guilty plea, the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office reduced the charges to fourth-degree assault by auto and third-degree conspiracy to possess a controlled dangerous substance.

What's bugging the spatterdock? New Jersey environmental and agricultural officials still do not know why masses of spatterdock, also known as yellow pond lily, are curling up and dying along Mantua Creek in Gloucester County. What they do know is that a type of beetle identified as Galerucella has been eating the leaves. And water samples have turned up no chemicals that could be causing the blight. Two species of Galerucella beetles, Galerucella calmariensis and Galerucella pusilla, were introduced into the United States from Europe in the 1990s to combat purple loosestrife, a beautiful but invasive perennial that was choking lakes.