2007 A Look Back
Top Stories of the Year

The Independent file

THE CONVICTION OF THOMAS TOOLAN

It was just over three years ago on Oct. 25, 2004 that Thomas Toolan III brutally and fatally stabbed resident Elizabeth "Beth" Lochtefeld in her Hawthorne Lane cottage. It was six months ago on June 21, 2007 that Toolan was convicted of first degree murder with the jury delivering a life sentence. Toolan will remain behind bars without the possibility of parole. It was a penalty that was painful for his parents, but did not come close to touching the sorrow experienced by Ms. Lochtefeld's family.

Toolan was incarcerated after being apprehended by officials in Rhode Island the afternoon of the murder as he allegedly drove back to his Manhattan apartment in a rental car from the Hyannis airport. At the three-week trial on Nantucket, a small parade of mental health professionals testified on both sides of the case. Toolan's attorney Kevin Reddington, who tried in vain to change the trial venue because of perceived abundant local publicity, hoped to convince the jury that Toolan was so impaired by early brain damage and alcohol and drug abuse that he was unaware of his actions or their consequences when he flew to the island the morning of the murder, rented a car and killed Ms. Lochtefeld. Days earlier in Manhattan she had rebuffed his marriage proposal and allegedly was kept captive by Toolan overnight until she escaped the next morning, while he slept, and returned to Nantucket.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent file

In the end, jurors did not accept Reddington's insanity defense and brought the conviction against Toolan, believing that the slaying was pre-meditated and committed with extreme atrocity. Ms. Lochtefeld, a successful business woman, was 44 at the time of her death.

- Mary Lancaster

MOVING SANKATY

After 16 years of planning and saving, the 'Sconset Trust finally moved the 156-yearold Sankaty Head Lighthouse 405 feet northwest to a safer location 280 feet from the beach.

Moving the 70-foot tall red-and-white striped monolith over to the fifth hole of Sankaty Head Golf Club from its imperiled site 75 feet from the edge of the bluff meant raising $4 million and hiring the services of International Chimney of Buffalo, N.Y. and their moving contractor, Expert House Movers of Sharpstown, Md. Together, they excavated around the 450-ton lighthouse, picked it up with a unified jacking system and inched it along specially designed I-beams.

The work began in April with the lashing of a timber-and-steel cable corset-like stabilizer around the middle of the lighthouse and the pouring of a five-foot thick octagonal foundation onto the Sankaty Head Golf Club land easement. Expert House Movers began excavation and move preparations of the lighthouse on Aug. 25, which included cutting holes through the lower section of the lighthouse, inserting steel I-beams through them and jacking up the lighthouse out of the ground to rest it on the I-beams. In turn, the beams were fitted with jacks on rollers that allowed the movers to keep the structure level as they pushed it along the beams 62 inches per thrust of a horizontal unified jacking system.

The move began at 8:36 a.m. on Oct. 1 and went through to 11 a.m. on Oct. 9. During the move, the 'Sconset Trust took ownership of the lighthouse from the U.S. Coast Guard through the Nantucket Historical Association in a unique sort of Yankee swap facilitated by the Federal Oceans Act of 1992 that authorized the Secretary of Transportation to give the lighthouse to the NHA. The U.S. Coast Guard relit the lighthouse at a special ceremony on Nov. 24.

- Peter B. Brace