Some People Just Depart--but She Really Left Town

--Briton Robin Thistlethwayte must have made a good impression on the few occasions he met a distant relative, Eva Borthwick-Norton. When she died last week at age 96, she left him 7,500 acres near England’s south coast, including 30 farms and the village of Southwick. Thistlethwayte, 52, a surveyor from Banbury, said he was astonished. “I have a lot of experience in running agricultural estates with traditional standards of farming,” he told the Times of London. The town includes 67 houses, a post office, two churches, two pubs and 300 residents, who appeared delighted at the inheritance. “It seems she made sure the village will be preserved as it is, which is wonderful news,” Valerie Church, who runs the Red Lion pub, was quoted in the Today newspaper. The estate had been in the Thistlethwayte family for 250 years until Lt. Col. Evelyn Thistle-thwayte left it to his nephew, Hugh Borthwick, in 1943.

--A 43-year-old Centralia, Ill., divorcee with eight children says she has been proposed to by John Wayne Gacy, who is on Death Row for the sex-related murders of 33 young men and boys--and she would be willing to marry him. The Chicago Sun-Times obtained dozens of love letters Gacy, 45, has written to Sue Terry, including his plans to be released and a variety of other topics. In one, Gacy said: “Of course, we could always move to Alaska. If the kids get out of line, just put them outside. And they would get the message, right?” In a copyrighted interview, Terry said she initiated the relationship out of curiosity after reading a newspaper article on Gacy and then writing him a letter. She is certain he is innocent. “I don’t believe hardly any of it,” Terry said. “ . . . He doesn’t think he’s guilty. To me he don’t seem like he could hurt anyone.”

--Faster than a speeding bullet; more upscale than a young executive. It’s Clark Kent, the alter ego of Superman, whose 50th anniversary was celebrated by hundreds of party-goers in New York. Comic book artist Curt Swan, who drew Superman for more than 25 years, said Kent originally was a “milquetoast, sweet, timid” man but is now often portrayed as more of a yuppie, with “high-fashion clothes” and a muscular physique. Swan says that he prefers the old version of Kent and that the Superman character has stayed much the same over the years.