Other days

100 YEARS AGO

Feb. 10, 1918 HELENA — A wagonload of turtles was brought to Helena this morning by a fisherman from Old Town lake. The 34 giant turtles, some of which weigh 100 pounds each, totaled 1,700 pounds, and it took a fourmule team to pull the wagon in which they were brought to the city.

50 YEARS AGO Feb. 10, 1968

CUMMINS PRISON FARM — State Prison Superintendent Thomas O. Murton said Friday that he had kept Governor Rockefeller’s aide for prison affairs advised of everything he had done at the penitentiary. And, Murton said, a week to 10 days before he began exhuming three skeletons at Cummins Prison Farm, the aide, Bob Scott, had told him, “Go ahead and dig them up.” Governor Rockefeller had criticized Murton Thursday for digging up the graves without notifying him. The governor said the first thing he knew about the digging was in a New York newspaper.

25 YEARS AGO Feb. 10, 1993

BENTONVILLE — A Rogers man was handed two life sentences Tuesday after a jury found him guilty in a child molestation case involving seven boys. A fourman, eight-woman jury deliberated for nearly three hours before finding Christopher Laughlin, 32, guilty of four counts of rape, two counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count of sexual solicitation of a child. “There’s got to be a special place in hell for people who exploit children,” Benton County Circuit Judge Tom Keith said after ordering the life sentences and two 40-year sentences on the rape charges to run consecutively.

10 YEARS AGO Feb. 10, 2008

Arkansas prostitutes are trying some new things to avoid getting busted. For instance, they will ask a potential customer if he’s a police officer, thinking a real officer can’t lie. Wrong. Police say they are under no legal obligation to identify themselves as officers. Or, police say, prostitutes will scout out a meeting place before a client arrives, thinking they can spot law enforcement. That tactic didn’t work for the two escorts arrested April 25 in Little Rock at a hotel near Interstate 30, according to a police report. Now, increasingly in central Arkansas, prostitutes are moving their business from the street or through an escort service to unregulated Internet sites. Internet ads are using terms like “diamonds” or “roses” instead of “dollars.”