Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 21, 1994                   TAG: 9404210225
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY REED
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EMPIRE STATE NOT KNOWN FOR HEART

C.C., Roanoke

A: Tom Hanks was sleepless; the building is heartless.

That big red heart was a computer-generated enhancement to the film.

The Empire State Building cannot light the windows in a heart-shaped design. Many of its panes are blocked from the inside by elevator shafts or by tenants' furnishings, the publicity folks said.

The building does use its exterior floodlights and the fluorescent tubes on its mast for special effects: red and green at Christmas, all green on St. Patrick's Day, and red, white and blue for the Fourth of July.|

Sunday mail waits

Q: I had a letter I wanted to get to Richmond in a reasonable time. On a Sunday morning, I drove to a post office to mail it. The information on the outside box indicated there would be no pickup until Monday afternoon! Isn't there a faster way to get postal service in Roanoke?

E.A., Roanoke

A: The local post offices don't process mail on Sundays.

The latest weekend mailing that will be cancelled promptly is offered at the main post office on Rutherford Avenue, where anything mailed by midnight Saturday should be processed quickly.

Closer to your home on Brandon Avenue is the Cave Spring post office on Virginia 419. Mail dropped off there by 5 p.m. Saturday should be processed that night, said manager Dave Clark.

Sunday mailings are not canceled until Monday because the volume is too light, a postal spokeswoman said.

Teens pick jury trials

Q: The two teen-agers' murder trial in Harrisonburg last week left me wondering. They had been convicted of murder in juvenile court in December and had appealed. Now they're on trial in another court. What's the explanation to this apparent double-jeopardy situation?

R.L., Radford

A: It wasn't double jeopardy. The teen-agers exercised their right to a trial by jury, which isn't available in juvenile court, where they were convicted before a judge.

Russell Stone, the deputy commonwealth's attorney in Rockingham County, said teen-agers usually accept the verdicts of juvenile courts, and this appeal was unusual.

All three defendants were younger than 15 when Marilyn Fries, mother of the two girls involved, was stabbed to death.

The other defendant was a boyfriend of the older girl.

They had nothing to lose by appealing, because the maximum sentence in both courts could allow them to go free after a couple of years in a juvenile learning center.

"Juvenile laws are just not adequate to handle cases like this," Stone said.

Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Give us a call at 981-3118. Maybe we can find the answer.