Alleged third target in Mich. killings flees

OWOSSO, Mich. - A real estate agent who was told he was the third intended target of the gunman charged with killing an abortion protester and a business owner said yesterday he had since fled his home in their small Michigan city.

The man charged with the killings, meanwhile, was to undergo surgery for a self-inflicted arm wound, according to a county prosecutor.

James Howe of Owosso said his family was upset after police told him he was a target in the Friday attacks.

"How would you hold up if someone was told you were going to be killed?" he asked in a cell-phone interview. He declined to say where he and his family were staying.

Howe also declined to say whether he knew Harlan James Drake, 33, who is accused of fatally shooting antiabortion activist James Pouillon and gravel-pit owner Mike Fuoss. Authorities said that when he was arrested, Drake told police he had also intended to kill Howe.

Drake was taken from the county jail to a hospital yesterday after cutting himself near a wrist, Shiawassee County Prosecutor Randy Colbry said.

Drake was arraigned Friday without a lawyer on charges of first-degree murder and ordered held without bond.

Police said little about a possible motive except that Drake - a truck driver who lived mostly on the road in his truck and who had family in the area - had a grudge against Fuoss and Howe and didn't like Pouillon's graphic antiabortion signs.

Pouillon, 63, was a polarizing figure in Owosso, a town of 15,000 best known as the birthplace of 1948 Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey. Inhaling oxygen from a small tank, he was a familiar figure, demonstrating with his signs outside schools, the library, City Hall, even football games.

On Friday morning, Pouillon was in one of his regular demonstration spots, across the street from the high school. Authorities allege that Drake pulled up to him in a truck and opened fire.

Flowers marked the spot yesterday. A note said, "May you rest now."

Chief assistant prosecutor Sara Edwards said that there didn't appear to be a "triggering event" but that Pouillon's presence outside the school seemed to irritate Drake. It was "the fact that he was outside the high school with his signs in front of children going to school," she said.

Drake then drove seven miles to a dead-end country road, where he killed Fuoss, 61, at his place of business, Shiawassee County Sheriff George Braidwood said. The two men knew each other, but authorities said nothing about what could have led to the slaying.