21 WFMJ archives / March 27, 1953 | Twenty-one people were killed and more than 60 injured 71 years ago when two New York Central passenger trains and a freight train collided near Conneaut, Pa.  The crash was triggered when one train derailed after striking a large pipe that had fallen off a freight train. Monetary loss was estimated at $1 million.

March 28

1999: Striking employees of RMI Titanium in Niles say when they walked out in October, they expected the strike to last a month or two, not that they would still be out six months later. 

Youngstown Postmaster Robert Furillo says a survey shows that 93 percent of the first-class mail between December and February was delivered on time. The numbers would have been better if there had not been a snowstorm in January. First-class mail should arrive anywhere in the continental United States within three days.

Dr. Susan Tave Zelman, the state superintendent of schools, spoke at the winter commencement of Youngstown State University and said educators must understand that "accountability is here to stay" and that proficiency tests are part of the process.

1984: Just before testimony begins in Hunt Energy Inc.'s bankruptcy case, a lawyer announces that CEO Russell Spitz has been removed. 

A national consultant tells Mahoning County Common Pleas judges that they could do much to reduce jail overcrowding by expediting felony cases so that the guilty could be sent to state prisons and by expediting the release of nonviolent defendants facing lesser charges. The alternative will be a lawsuit brought over overcrowding or the construction of another jail.  

Both Hanover Township fire departments fight a blaze that destroyed a house on state Route 172 that had once been occupied by Daniel Delp Jr., a member of the Pagans motorcycle gang who is in prison on a weapons charge. 

1974: A Portage County grand jury rules justifiable homicide in the shooting death of a Kent State student by a narcotics agent on March 6. However, the jury questions the level of police training in narcotics control. 

Youngstown Mayor Jack C. Hunter suggests asking Mahoning County commissioners to take over Mill Creek Park as a county agency. 

Ariane Tebbenjohanns Sheppard, the second wife of the late Dr. Sam Sheppard, is leaving Cleveland to return to Europe. 

1949: A gang of safecrackers escapes with $4,000 in a burglary at Century Market at 2203 Market St. Police estimate it took eight hours using torches and sledge hammers to crack the heavy safe. 

Vindicator Reporter Adrian Slifka and his wife were besieged with hundreds of telephone calls to their Lucius Avenue home from angry pyramid club members responding to a bylined story Slifka wrote exposing the clubs. 

The Most Rev. James McFadden, bishop of the Diocese of Youngstown, is in Ireland for a week's visit while returning from Rome.