Norwood

Police were questioning two men yesterday in connection with the death of a 24-year-old Delaware County businessman found fatally injured in a Norwood auto shop at 7 p.m. Saturday. Police said an employee had discovered Thomas Lennox, the 24-year-old owner of VIP Detailing, dead in the shop. Lennox's car also was missing. Lennox appeared to have been struck in the head, police said. The immediate cause of his death at the shop, in the 600 block of Chester Pike, was under investigation by the Delaware County medical examiner.

An art student working his way through college at a Norwood convenience store was shot to death early yesterday at the store, apparently during a robbery. Alerted by an anonymous telephone call at 2:55 a.m., Delaware County detectives went to the Stop-N-Go at Chester Pike and Huron Avenue and found John P. Kilman, 19, lying behind the counter with gunshot wounds of the head and abdomen. Investigators with the county medical examiner's office said Kilman, of the 500 block of Mohawk Avenue, Norwood, was pronounced dead about an hour later at Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park.

For Scott Norwood, the fifth time was the charm. The Buffalo placekicker made a 42-yard attempt 2:34 into overtime to give the AFC East champion Bills (12-2) a 30-27 comeback victory over the Raiders at the Los Angeles Coliseum yesterday. Norwood had missed three field goals and a point-after conversion in the final 17 1/2 minutes of regulation, including a 36-yard field goal with 11 seconds left in the fourth quarter. "This was the toughest day in my career," said Norwood, who missed a 47- yard field goal that would have won last January's Super Bowl for Buffalo against the Giants.

Jubal W. Owens Sr., 77, of Norwood, a World War II combat veteran and former building superintendent for the Henderson Construction Co., died Saturday of apparent heart failure. A native of Southwest Philadelphia and one of 10 children, Mr. Owens attended John Bartram High School up to the 10th grade, when he left to take a job at a shipyard in Philadelphia. He was named for Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early by his father, a native of Virginia. Mr. Owens enlisted in the Army in 1941 and served with the 702d Tank Battalion, known as the Red Devils.

Last year, officials in the tiny Delaware County borough of Norwood raised real estate taxes 34.7 percent, an increase they said was required to prevent the borough from going bankrupt by the summer. Now, Norwood has a different problem, the kind that many a recession-ravaged municipality would love to have: a six-figure surplus. The $327,000 surplus has led some residents to wonder if the council raised taxes too much. George Fieo, treasurer in this borough of about 5,700 people, said he made the best fiscal guess he could, given last year's circumstances.

Although Republicans outnumber Democrats almost 2-1 in Norwood, the Democrats have controlled the borough council since 1984, and a Democrat has served as mayor for the last eight years. Yet the Republican candidate for mayor is an incumbent. That's because Norwood Mayor Frederick W. Evans, who has held that office since 1982, has switched parties and is running next week on the Republican ticket. Evans is heading up a Republican slate. "The Democrats have become lackadaisical because they have no one to answer to but themselves," Evans said recently.

The Norwood Borough Council is considering an increased occupancy fee on rental units and making application for a grant to further renovate a historic property owned by the borough. At Monday's borough council caucus, the council agreed to propose an ordinance at the regular meeting tomorrow to put teeth in an existing law requiring an annual occupancy inspection for rental units, as well as an inspection each time a new occupant moves into a rental unit. The proposal would raise the inspection fee from $10 to $50 and would require that landlords have the units inspected by March 1 each year, according to borough solicitor Joel Robbins.

Residents here will see their taxes go up by about 5.8 percent next year, with the Borough Council having increased the real estate tax by 10 mills to balance a 1997 budget of $2,242,700. The council passed the budget by a 7-0 vote at a Monday night meeting. The increase was largely due to a 4 percent salary hike for borough employees, along with higher payments for pensions and other benefits, Borough Treasurer Joseph W. Garrity said yesterday. There was also an increase of about $8,000 in the borough's debt service payments to pay for the purchase of some equipment, he said.

Norwood will have to pay a sewer rate increase of about $30,000 next year, according to the borough's representative to the Muckinipates Sewer Authority. At Monday's Borough Council meeting, Frank Mallee, the Norwood representative to the sewer authority, told the Borough Council that because of an increase in the amount of sewage processed by the authority this year, and a projected increase in 1990, Norwood's share of the cost for treating the waste will go up from $133,000 this year to about $163,000 next year.

A Norwood man faces a preliminary hearing tomorrow on state charges that he impersonated a deputy constable on numerous occasions in Prospect Park, Norwood and Media. Neal Houston, 26, of the 200 block of East Winona Avenue, would wear a Pennsylvania state constable uniform, including the insignia and handgun, and would get constable assignments for which he was paid, according to an affidavit filed in Folcroft District Court. Houston drove a blue Dodge Diplomat with red and blue lights in the rear, a 911 bumper sticker, a CB radio and a license plate that was registered to a Chevrolet he owns, the affidavit states.

BAYLOR associate coach Brian Norwood has been contacted by Penn State about its coaching vacancy, ESPN reported yesterday, citing a source. ESPN said Hawaii also is interested in Norwood. He played there in the 1980s and later coached seven seasons at Penn State, where his son, Jordan, was a wideout. Norwood has been a college coach for 21 years. In addition to Penn State and Baylor, he has coached at Arizona, Richmond, Navy and Texas Tech. According to USA Today , Penn State already has interviewed interim coach Tom Bradley and Tom Clements, the Green Bay Packers' quarterbacks coach who is from Western Pennsylvania and played at Notre Dame.

John C. Greer, 88, of Prospect Park, a former funeral director and borough official, died of congestive heart failure Saturday, July 16, at Kennedy University Hospital in Stratford. A spokeswoman for the Griffith Funeral Chapel in Norwood said Mr. Greer began working there in 1946, was its general manager for several years, and retired in 1991. Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from Prospect Park High School and served from 1942 to 1945 as an Army combat phone operator in the Arno River and Po Valley campaigns in Italy.

A Delaware County construction worker admitted Monday that he beat a woman unconscious and tried to molest her in a bar bathroom, an attack she said occurred after she wouldn't dance with him. Mbarek Lafrem, 32, of Norwood, said nothing beyond brief answers to a judge's questions as he pleaded guilty to assault and attempted sexual abuse. - AP

Last year, officials in the tiny Delaware County borough of Norwood raised real estate taxes 34.7 percent, an increase they said was required to prevent the borough from going bankrupt by the summer. Now, Norwood has a different problem, the kind that many a recession-ravaged municipality would love to have: a six-figure surplus. The $327,000 surplus has led some residents to wonder if the council raised taxes too much. George Fieo, treasurer in this borough of about 5,700 people, said he made the best fiscal guess he could, given last year's circumstances.

A Chester police officer remained hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after he was struck by a car on Thanksgiving night while directing traffic around a traffic accident. Joseph Toanone suffered head, neck, and back injuries, and was admitted to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, according to Capt. Robert Archacki. Toanone was conscious and alert, he said Friday. Just after Toanone was struck, a police-dispatch call was issued for a "officer down. " Two officers from Norwood and Lower Chichester were heading toward the scene and were involved in "nonserious" traffic accidents, Archacki said.

The Rev. Wesley K. Meixell, 82, of Wynnefield, a Methodist minister who served churches in Philadelphia and Delaware County, died of heart failure Sunday, Sept. 12, at Lankenau Hospital. Mr. Meixell was pastor of Norwood United Methodist Church from 1984 until retiring in 1990. In 1988, he celebrated the 100th anniversary of his church and of Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Norwood at a joint service. When an Inquirer reporter asked him to describe his church's mission, he said his congregants "seek to share Christ with new people and to cultivate and sustain a loving, caring, Christian fellowship.

Michael J. Cabry Jr., 74, of Boothwyn, president of Brandywine Financial Planners, died Sunday, May 30, of heart failure at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland. Mr. Cabry graduated from Southeast Catholic High School, now SS. Neumann Goretti High School. He was a chemical assistant at the DuPont Co. before cofounding Brandywine Financial in 1965. He continued to operate the Concordville firm with two partners: son Michael III and Leonard Scinto. In 1963, Mr. Cabry was appointed justice of the peace for Norwood by Gov. William Scranton.

Editor's note: In the weeks after two teenage girls from Delaware County committed suicide in February by stepping in front of an Amtrak train, The Inquirer interviewed dozens of friends, relatives, police, public officials, and school personnel in an effort to reconstruct how this tragedy took place and to help understand the causes and recognize the warning signs of teenage suicide. Vanessa Dorwart was out the door in a flash. The Interboro High School sophomore seldom went anywhere without first considering, "How do I look?"

Vanessa Dorwart was out the door in a flash. The Interboro High School sophomore seldom went anywhere without first considering, "How do I look?" But on this late February morning, the 15-year-old got out of bed, pulled her hair into a ponytail, threw on some clothes, and zipped out. No primping. No purse. No Burberry perfume. It was just Vanessa, her BlackBerry, and a 11/2-mile walk to the Norwood train station. "I'm going out real quick," she told her older sister, Frankie, 17, also home sick from school.

Authorities in Delaware County are investigating the death of an Interboro High School student found hanged Wednesday night in an old mill in Chester City. Dominic Marchesani, 18, of Prospect Park, was found by his parents and pronounced dead at the scene by medics, police said. The Interboro community had already been rocked by the deaths of two girls who took their own lives on Feb. 25 in a suicide pact at the Norwood train station, a few blocks from the school. Randy Bothwell, a Chester police detective, said investigators found no tie between Marchesani and the girls other than attending the same school.