And this week in Augusta, Ron Walker and his wife, Cheryl, won't be able to make their house payment.

With only two weeks of unemployment checks left, Mr. Walker and other former King Mill employees who haven't found work since the plant closed in May are desperate.

''We're scared to death we're going to lose the house," said Mrs. Walker, who has extensive medical problems and takes almost $14,000 worth of prescription medicine a year just to stay alive. ''Things are getting pretty desperate around here."

Mr. Walker, 61, who worked at King Mill for 39 years, lost his job when the plant closed without notice after Spartan International Inc. turned its assets over to its primary creditor, General Electric Capital Corp.

King Mill TODD BENNETT/STAFF

The move closed six mills in three states and threw 1,200 people out of work without the required 60 days' notice and without medical insurance or retirement funds. Medical bills that were being processed and for which premiums had been deducted from the employees' pay were not paid, leaving some with huge hospital and doctor bills.

Mr. Tourtellot, the North Carolina businessman initially appointed by the court to dispose of Spartan's assets, and his lawyer, Michael M. Beal, have asked the bankruptcy court in Spartanburg to pay them $474,775.71 in fees and expenses for work they did before an appeals court forced them out.

A hearing on the motion will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday in the federal courthouse in Spartanburg. One of the Augusta lawyers representing the King Mill employees' efforts to get the medical benefits and wages they were denied because of the plant's abrupt closing will argue against the motion. He will try to get the trustee to pay the employees' claims before those of other creditors.

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''Our concern is the time delay, obviously," John B. Long said. ''We don't want these people to go bankrupt or die."

Watching the case bog down in litigation, former King Mill employee Gloria Renew, 55, has given up on seeing a resolution.

''I don't even want to talk to anybody about it anymore," she said.

She was especially bitter when she read that GE had pledged $10 million for the families of people who died trying to help victims trapped in the World Trade Center.

''That's fine," she said. ''I don't begrudge those people anything, understand that, but they're going to give those people $10 million, and GE has fought to keep us from getting what we legally should have."

GE spokesman Ned Reynolds declined to comment on the company's reaction to Mrs. Renew's statement.

Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylviaco@augustachronicle.com.