KEY WITNESS IS SHOT TO DEATH WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department has disclosed its main witness in a conspiracy case involving $43 million in stocks and securities stolen from the U.S. mails was found shot to death just two days after a grand jury returned a sealed indictment in a secret session. The Miami slaying of John B. Eaton was the second shooting of a key suspect in mail thefts from New York's crime-ridden Kennedy Airport in little more than a month. Eaton's body was found in a field near Miami International Airport June 27, just a month and a day after another man charged in a stock theft from the mails was found stuffed in 'an abandoned car at Kennedy Airport. The Federal indictment in Miami charged the-remaining 10 men win conspiracy to dispose of the $43 million in securities stolen from registered mail at Kennedy Airport being- sent between brokers.and banks from 1967 through 1969. Eaton, charged in a slock theft last year, was found slain in a field west of the Miami airport only two days after the stock conspiracy charges were returned by a grand jury that kept the indictment sealed until Monday. A federal attorney in Miami has named another man charged in a case involving al- - legedly forged U.S. savings bonds as a prime suspect in Eaton's death.. Joel J. Rostau, 34, Los Angeles, who had been charged with interstate theft of securities from the mail at Kennedy, - was found shot to death May 26 in a parked car at that airport. The car had been rented in Boston and driven to New York at least 12 days before the Cali- fornia man's body, was found. The slay|ng was similar to the fatal shooting of a suspect in another mail fraud case who was found in an abandoned rental car at LaGuardia' Airport in New York several months earlier. Asst. U.S. atty. Neal Sonnett in Miami described Eaton as a key government informant in the slock conspiracy case. "He had been named a co-defendant in the case for his.own protection," Sorinetl said. The 14 count indictment re- . turned by a federal grand jury in Miami June 25 named 10 other defendants besides Eaton.
