Unsure of cause of death for New Hampshire girl

STEWARTSTOWN, N.H. — After an autopsy failed to immediately reveal last night how 11-year-old Celina Cass ended up dead in the Connecticut River, residents of this tranquil village near the Canadian border grappled with the jarring possibility of a killer in their midst.

“Whoever did this might be living here,” said Carole Rodrigue, whose grandson went to school with Celina. “I just hope they get the person and he pays for what he did, because she was just an innocent little girl.”

After a nearly weeklong search, dive teams found the missing fifth-grader Monday about a quarter mile from her home. Assistant Attorney General Jane Young said the girl’s death was suspicious because of the condition of the body, but she declined to be specific.

Last night, Young announced an autopsy did not determine the cause or manner of the girl’s death and further study is required, including a toxicology test.

Residents of this town told the Herald yesterday they were hoping the autopsy would shed light on what until this week had seemed unimaginable in this village of 960 people, where it was not uncommon for residents to leave their doors unlocked at night.

“Something really hasn’t added up since we heard about it, but what it is I don’t know,” said Donna Allen, the local librarian. “We were hoping for the best, but we thought the longer she was missing, it would be bad news.”

Johanne Rodrigue said her 10-year-old son went to a nearby park with Celina and her family July 22, the Friday before she vanished.

The following Tuesday, Celina’s 13-year-old sister, Kayla, and a friend came into her shop asking whether she had seen the 11-year-old. That evening, when Rodrigue dropped off food at the Cass home, the girl’s stepfather, Wendell Noyes, told her they had last seen Celina about 9 p.m. the day before on the computer at home, she said.

“My first thought was she had met someone on the Internet,” she said. “They weren’t girls who hung out on the street. They were quiet girls, very respectful.”

The family could not be reached yesterday for comment.

Noyes was taken to a hospital by ambulance Monday after dropping to his knees in the family’s driveway, his face in his hands.

The death certificate indicates both the cause and manner of death are still pending," Young told reporters. "The attorney general's office continues to investigate her death as suspicious."

Cass, who had long brown hair and hazel eyes, went missing on July 25 from her home in West Stewartstown, New Hampshire, near the state's border with Canada. The FBI received more than 500 tips in the case and offered $25,000 for information leading to her whereabouts.

Divers from New Hampshire's Department of Fish and Game located the girl's body on Monday in the river near a hydroelectric plant in the community of about 1,000 people.

The decision to open a criminal investigation in the girl's death was based on visual evidence from the girl's body both in the water and when viewed on shore, Young said. She declined to comment on whether police had identified any people of interest in the case.

FAA fight causes turbulence

Despite an appeal from President Obama, the Senate recessed without funding the Federal Aviation Administration, leaving nearly 4,000 "nonessential" workers on unpaid furlough and other "essential" employees on the job without pay at least through Labor Day.

Airport safety inspectors, who enforce compliance with federal rules and are considered essential, have been asked to keep working and put expenses on personal credit cards. But the FAA insisted that safety is not affected because air traffic controllers, who are paid with separate funds, remain on the job.

Obama called Congress' failure to resolve the situation "another Washington-inflicted wound on America."

The standoff also is costing the government money. Without an FAA funding bill, airlines are not required to turn over ticket taxes, which add up to $250 million a week. A month without those taxes costs the U.S. $1 billion.

The FAA's funding authority expired in 2007, forcing the agency to get by on a succession of temporary extensions. In all, 20 extensions have been passed while Democrats and Republicans attempted to hammer out a deal over other facets of the bill. The most recent extension expired more than a week ago.

The House approved a temporary extension in mid-July, but added a rider that would eliminate subsidies to 13 rural airports — including in home states of key senators. One airport in Nevada — home to Majority Leader Harry Reid — receives subsidies of more than $3,500 per passenger. Because of the rider, the Senate refused to pass the extension.

The subsidy issue may be a bargaining chip, however. In the background is another point of contention: Republicans want to make it harder for air and rail employees to unionize. Eliminating rural airport subsidies dear to several key senators was seen as a pressure tactic to achieve that goal.

Republicans want to overturn a National Mediation Board rule that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Republicans want those who don't vote to count as "no" votes.

Leaders in the House of Representatives objected to a provision supported in the Senate bill that would allow airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Instead, they wanted to count those who didn't vote as voting "no."

Also, the House bill would eliminate $16.5 million in air subsidies to several rural communities where the subsidy amounts to more than $1,000 per passenger.

The cuts to the Essential Air Service program wouldn't affect upstate New York cities that depend on the subsidies for scheduled air service.

Meanwhile, 4,000 FAA employees remain idled due to a lack of funding from Congress, and more than 200 airport projects employing an estimated 70,000 construction workers have been halted.

The partial shutdown, which began July 22, is costing the U.S. Treasury about $30 million a day in uncollected ticket taxes. Airlines at first stopped collecting them, resulting in a temporary drop in ticket prices, but quickly raised prices to offset the tax savings to consumers.

The money is now flowing to airline coffers. By September, more than $1 billion will have been lost to the U.S. Treasury.

"Every week it's not reauthorized creates mounting problems for our local economy," U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday evening. "While it's not a safety problem, because controllers are in their towers, it's a major jobs problem at a time when we need to do everything in our power to keep New Yorkers in their jobs and put people back to work."

In New York state, 127 FAA employees have been furloughed, said spokeswoman Arlene Salac, most of them at FAA offices in Queens and elsewhere on Long Island. Three employees, in Ithaca, Rome and Syracuse, were also furloughed, although no one was laid off in the Capital Region.

Bachelorette Ashley Hebert’s Engagement Ring

While it was extremely difficult to keep their relationship concealed from the public as their love story was displayed on national TV, the recently affianced couple Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum made sure to sneak in a NYC visit while The Bachelorette was still airing!

“Ashley came to New York a few weeks after Fiji, she went to the safe apartment they used,” a Big Apple-based photographer told E! News. “ABC is very involved, and brings one in at a time, and an assistant brings in their belongings hours later. After the weekend, J.P. left first, then Ashley walked out four hours after he did. It’s a serious operation.

Ashley had cut-outs from magazines and pictures she’d downloaded from the Internet of rings she’d dreamed about,” says Lane, who collaborated with her before hand-making six ring options for Hebert’s suitors, Ben Flajnik and J.P. Rosenbaum, to choose from when vying for the coveted final rose. “I understood what her fantasy princess ring was all about. It had to be delicate but have a presence and she wanted a central stone with diamonds on the band — a ring with a romantic feel that sparkled.”

And Rosenbaum’s winning pick? A 3.5-carat, central cushion-cut sparkler accented with 162 small, hand-set diamonds around a platinum band. “It has a vintage, 19th-century romantic feel, with soft edges, but with a contemporary look,” Lane says of the ring, valued at around $60,000. “Whichever way Ashley moves her finger, she sees sparkles.”

And, as Lane tells it, a whole lot of fireworks. “Once J.P. proposed and put the ring on her finger, they were inseparable,” he says. “They were kissing, laughing, hugging, more hugging, more laughing, and they couldn’t stop looking at the ring — and at each other.