ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 22, 1996 TAG: 9607220098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ALLEGAN, MICH.
SOURCE: Associated Press
HE ADMITTED to the brutal murder of his mentally ill wife. But family and friends describe him as a man of extraordinary character.
He has a dry wit and likes to collect rocks. As a younger man, he answered an ad seeking a driver for a disabled boy who wanted to watch baseball. When summer ended, he bought his passenger a gift.
John Upton taught children to sail and swim on Michigan lakes. In Tappahannock, he always reserved a table at annual prayer breakfasts.
``In the 26 years I have known him,'' says S.A. Burnette, a president of J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond, ``I have never once heard him raise his voice in anger, say an unkind thing about another person.''
These details about Upton, 64, emerge from the thick stack of letters filed at the Allegan County Courthouse. The president of Virginia's Rappahannock Community College is accused of killing his wife, Kathleen, 63, at their summer home along Lake Michigan.
The letters were character references, many from prominent Virginians in public life, as Upton sought unsuccessfully to be released on bail last week.
But the passages, some handwritten, tell more. Several writers reveal private traits about him, snippets that cast some light on his wife's mental illness and also make Upton's alleged act hard to comprehend.
The Ann Arbor native was raised in a ``strict family. Right and wrong were clearly differentiated,'' said cousin Fred Gielow Jr., of Boca Raton, Fla. ``The demands of family, the law, society and personal honor were clear and omnipotent ... He has always been unselfish, sometimes to a flaw.''
Upton has hired new lawyers, a move that will postpone an important hearing for a few weeks. District Judge Gary Stewart next must decide whether he will stand trial on an open murder charge.
Kathleen Upton was bludgeoned, stabbed and smothered late July 1 or early the next day. In a call to an emergency dispatcher, Upton admitted killing her, saying he had ``become exasperated over the constant demands.''
A brother, Dr. Arthur Upton of New York, said Kathleen Upton was repeatedly hospitalized for her mental illness, even before they were married.
``John took the added burden in stride, displaying no self-pity, no anger, no dismay,'' Gielow said.
Robert Woznicki, a history professor at Northern Arizona University, recalled a phone conversation with Upton last fall.
``He mentioned that Kathy was ill and that he loved her very much,'' Woznicki said. ``Multiple tensions ... existed in his life, not only in running a college, but because of the illness of Mrs. Upton.''
Virginia state Sen. John Chichester said: ``Dr. Upton has never had an ax to grind with anyone. ... There is no way I can minimize the extraordinary quality of the individual now incarcerated.''
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