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June 8, 2007

Race pleads innocent in Manor murder

Family, friends of murdered Mooers man turn out for arraignment

By SUZANNE MOORE

MOOERS -- Glen D. Race pleaded innocent on Thursday evening to killing Darcy Manor.

His lower face hidden by a protective white spit guard and hands restrained, the Nova Scotia man, 26, was arraigned before Mooers Town Justice Jeff Menard on the charge of second-degree murder in a courtroom packed with a hushed and grim-faced crowd of about 60, mostly members of Manor's family, including his widow, Heather.

"Do you understand that charge, sir?" the judge asked Race after explaining it in detail.

Eyes closed, Race nodded with a deliberate forward jerk of his head. He repeated the motion after Menard asked if he comprehended the second charge of fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property -- the Ruger .44 caliber rifle that belongs to Martin B. Lavin, who owns the Mooers camp at 811 Drown Road where the Mooers father of two young sons was slain on May 10.

Believed to be the murder weapon, the rifle was found in Race's possession upon his arrest in Texas near the Mexican border.

With another nod, Race accepted appointed counsel, and Menard granted a recess so the defendant could meet briefly in another room with Plattsburgh attorney Daniel Gaudreau.

The crowd waited out the break with whispered conversation. Mrs. Manor, surrounded by loved ones, wiped her eyes, light glinting off the wedding band on her left hand.

"I have so much rage right now," said Cheryl Rovelli of Churubusco, sitting in the front row of the courtroom with a white purse on her lap.

She attended the arraignment "to see what would happen" to the man accused of killing Manor, who she said "was a very good man.

"He definitely did not deserve this. My heart goes out to his family," she said, as tears fell.

Held without bail

Back in the courtroom, Gaudreau made Race's innocent plea. Race will be held without bail and will undergo a psychological evaluation as per the request of Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie.

Race has paranoid schizophrenia, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, attorney Joel E. Pink -- who represents the man's family -- has said he would pursue an insanity plea should Race be prosecuted in that province, where he is accused of murdering two men prior to the killing of Manor.

"We're not concerned at all about that," Wylie said later about having a similar defense brought in Clinton County.

Race, he said, murdered two men in the Halifax area, traveled down through Canada, escaped across the border into New York state and killed Manor.

Before fleeing in the man's truck to Texas, "he took great effort to discard and (hide) the body," he said.

Such deliberate and calculated actions are not those of a person who has no control over his actions, the district attorney said.

"When he does speak, he speaks clear and with what appears to be intelligent thought process," Wylie added.

Race, in white shirt, jeans and dirty, laceless sneakers, arrived at Plattsburgh International Airport at about 5 p.m., escorted without incident from the plane by Homeland Security officials who turned him over to State Police.

Taken from the Homeland Security facility there to the State Police barracks in Plattsburgh for processing, he spit at a detective and the officer who was booking him, according to Wylie.

"We had to put together that hood and mask to protect the court" and the public, he said following the arraignment.

As another precaution, the district attorney asked that the judge conduct the proceedings without having Race approach the bench. He stood behind a table just a few feet in front of the first row of seats.

He was flanked by State Police officers and kept still except for fidgeting fingers. He only spoke a few times, in a low voice to Gaudreau, once asking for copies of the court paperwork.

"They seemed to be very cautious with him," said Betty Bushey, an aunt of Mr. Manor's. "He seems to be a very dangerous individual."

Her face twisted with emotion, she said she found Race "creepy."

"No regard for human life -- he's an animal."

Manor's wife reacts

Many family members turned out for the arraignment, in part, to make a statement to Race, she said, to show him "what a close family we are and how we'll pull together through to the end of it.

"Hopefully, there's a good end."

Mr. Manor's killer, she said, "just left such a hole in our family that will never go away."

A psychological evaluation and an effort to defend Race by that route, suggested Alan Cardin, an uncle of Mr. Manor, will just drag out the process.

"And the family is going to suffer every day."

In the case of any person who commits homicide, he said, "you've got to be insane -- you've got to be sick.

"It's not normal to murder someone in cold blood."

But, he said, "you know they're going to try any damn angle they can" to avoid a conviction. "That's how the law works."

Mrs. Manor spoke briefly as darkness fell in the parking lot outside the courtroom. Her first sight of Race left her "sick to her stomach," she said.

Hesitantly, she expressed a kind of dull surprise, too.

"He's such a very little man," she said, her voice low. "My husband was a very big man."

Pending completion of the psychological evaluation, Race will reappear in Mooers Court June 21.

smoore@pressrepublican.com

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