Couple's minivan hit by a falling object: a 600-pound cow

Associated Press
MANSON, Wash. � Charles and Linda Everson were driving back to their hotel when their minivan was struck by a falling object � a 600-pound cow.

The Eversons were unhurt but the cow, which had fallen off a cliff, had to be euthanized.

The year-old cow fell about 200 feet from the cliff and landed on the hood of the couple's minivan, causing heavy damage.

A Chelan County fire chief, Arnold Baker, said the couple missed being killed by a matter of inches in the accident Sunday on a highway near Manson.

The Eversons, visiting the area from their home in Westland, Mich., to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, were checked at Lake Chelan Community Hospital as a precaution.

Everson, 49, said he didn't see the cow falling and didn't know what happened until afterward.

He said he kept repeating: "I don't believe this. I don't believe this."

SIUE Students Use Cookies To Torture 19 Year Old

By: Roche Madden

Two S.I.U.E. students are charged with kidnapping and torturing a 19 year old by burning him with freshly baked cookies. Authorities say it happened at a home near the S.I.U.E. campus.

Detectives say 3 people went there to purchase 400 dollars worth of marijuana. Instead 2 of them stole the pot and ran leaving the 19 year old behind. Detective Sgt. Gary Burns says 23 year old Rosario James and 20 year old Jordan Sallis tortured the 19 year old trying to get their drug money. He says it started out with freshly baked cookies.

Sgt. Burns says, "They were extremely hot and several were put on the victim's shoulder and chest burning him severely."

Authorities say the suspects also beat the teen with a fraternity paddle, gave him a demeaning haircut and poured a bottle of urine over the victim's head. In between the torturing the 19 year old called friends trying to get someone to bring him the 400 dollars. Finally, he told the suspects he could get the money. When the suspects and victim arrived at that home the victim ran inside and called police.



Torture by haircut? (They must be Flock of Seagulls fans.)

Man says 'Devil Woman' bit off his lip during kiss
"You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss ... "

That's what the classic song As Time Goes By says. But for one Seattle area man, his latest kiss means permanent disfigurement after his ex-girlfriend turned a buss into a bite and removed about two-thirds of his lower lip.

Police say that after the bite (she spit out the lip), Thomas J. Brummel, 49, ran around and yelled while bleeding heavily. While yelling, Brummel is quoted as saying of his alleged attacker, Laura Cutler: "She's a devil woman."

Cutler, 44, has been charged with second-degree domestic-violence assault and has been ordered held on $75,000 bail. Doctors were unable to reattach the lip.

Body of skydiver found in Brazoria

By RICHARD STEWART
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

An employee of a popular skydiving facility in Brazoria County was found dead this afternoon, apparently killed earlier this week after his parachute malfunctioned while making a jump.

A Brazoria County deputy went to Skydive Spaceland in Rosharon this afternoon, to check on a man who had been reported missing. The deputy and employees of the facility found the man's body in an area south of the jump zone.

The body was taken to the Galveston County Medical Examiner's office.

Officials did not release the man's name pending notification of his relatives.

The diver wasn't noticed missing because he is the person who checks people in before they jump and accounts for them after they jump, said Houston attorney Lee McMillian. McMillian said he is the legal adviser for the facility.

McMillian wouldn't give the man's name, but said he was 35 and lived in a trailer on the facility's property.

McMillian said the man jumped alone in the last jump on Wednesday, and when he didn't return to the hangar, people assumed he had simply walked home for the night.

"He was an experienced jumper," McMillian said. "We had 109 jumps."

When the worker didn't return to the facility for a staff meeting Thursday morning, other employees were concerned, but thought it had gone to a girlfriend's house and simply missed the meeting, McMillian said.

On Friday a pilot noticed what looked like a parachute in tall grass about 200 yards beyond the facility's drop zone, McMillian said.

"Everybody out here is pretty upset," McMillian said. "He was a very popular guy."

Preliminary indications are that the jumper's main parachute failed and he deployed his reserve parachute too late, McMillian said.

It is the first fatality and the facility, which opened in 1999, he said.

You can't manipulate the ground. This isn't the Matrix.

P.S. - I laughed out loud when I read "The Ground."

Man killed by oncoming train

By Tessa Moll

A train struck and killed a man near Circleville Monday evening.

The incident occurred sometime after 5 p.m. near the Circleville Store on State Highway 95.
At this time, the incident is still under investigation but officials believe the man was in front of the oncoming train intentionally, said Sgt. Michael Smith of the Texas Department of Transportation Highway Patrol Division.

The man carried no identification and there was no vehicle nearby, but Smith said the department will make a fingerprint identification by this afternoon.

No one else was injured and no property was damaged as a result of the incident.

A woman in Florida made a startling discovery over the weekend when she found her boyfriend stuck in her house�s cat door, News4Jax.com reported.

The girlfriend of Charles Tucker Jr., 33, had reportedly kicked him out of her St. Augustine home. Hours later, she found the man stuck in the small door and called police. When they arrived four minutes later, the man was dead, News4Jax.com reported.

"He's a big guy. I don't even know how he could fit through there," Tucker�s friend, Will Elliot told News4Jax.com. "Probably to get in and unlock the door. They said he had one arm through there and his head was caught in there like he was to reach up and unlock the door because there's no way he could fit through there."

Cops are currently awaiting autopsy results.

Stacey Brownlee tried a case once, I believe, in Fort Bend where a young girl tried to get her head into a partially open window. The girl's friend kicked the box out from under her. Police found the body of the girl who was trying to get into the house hanging from the window the next day.

At least, I think it was Stacey who tried it. It may have been Tyra McCollum.

quote:

---

P.S. - I laughed out loud when I read "The Ground."

---

Its not the high voltage line that kills you...

its The Ground!

Police think a person may have sneaked into imploded hotel

By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Houston police are investigating the possibility that someone may have been inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel when it was imploded last weekend.

"We got a lead that someone might have sneaked into the building before the implosion and might have been there when it imploded," said John Cannon, spokesman for the Houston Police Department. "It's too early to tell if that's true."

Cannon said police investigators are expected to search the implosion site today. They searched the rubble Wednesday and a body was not found, he added.

Officials with the demolition firm, Cherry Demolition, said in a statement that the police told them Wednesday about the possibility that someone could have been in the building when it was toppled.

Mother beaten to death with rock in Fort Worth
November 15, 2007

WFAA-TV Staff Reports


1400 5th Avenue
A Fort Worth man was in jail Thursday accused of beating his mother to death.

Police said the man beat the 75-year-old woman with a rock in front of her home in the 1400 block of 5th Avenue.

The victim was identified as Juana Herrera and the medical examiner placed the time of her death at 10: 51 p.m. Wednesday. The woman was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital, not far from her home, where she was pronounced dead.

Police said they had no motive for the attack.

Man jumps into gator-infested lake fleeing police; turns up dead with teeth marks on torso


(AP) - MICCOSUKEE TRIBE INDIAN RESERVATION, Florida-A suspected thief disappeared into an alligator-infested lake as he fled police only to turn up dead the next day with gator teeth marks on his upper torso, authorities said Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear how the man died, but a 9-foot-3-inch (2.82-meter) long alligator may have been responsible.

The reptile has been killed and is being stored in a cooler awaiting a coroner's examination for human hair or skin, said Brian Wood, owner of All American Gator Products, which is storing the gator for now. It will then be incinerated or buried, he said.

The man was allegedly burglarizing a vehicle in a resort parking lot Thursday and ran when police arrived, said Dexter Lehtinen, one of the Miccosukee tribe's police legal advisers. His name was not released.

The man's body was recovered Friday by tribal police divers from the lake at the Miccosukee Resort and Convention Center west of Miami. A sign there warns people: "Danger Live Alligators."

Well, he did get away.

Death of man who was Tasered under investigation

By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
4:27 PM PST, December 3, 2007

Authorities are investigating the death of a 32-year-old man who lost consciousness sometime after being shocked with a Taser gun during a confrontation with Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, officials said today.

Cesar Silva, 32, who authorities suspect was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time, passed out in the back seat of a patrol car after struggling with officers shortly before midnight Friday, said Steve Whitmore, a department spokesman. Silva was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, he said.

The Sheriff's Department internal affairs unit and the district attorney's office are investigating.

The Taser, which delivers a 50,000-volt shock in five-second intervals, was used because Silva was so combative and had injured at least two deputies, Whitmore said. However, it may not have been effective, because deputies still had to use force to get Silva under control.

"Eyewitnesses indicated there was a real struggle. He had a deputy's leg in a hold," said Michael Gennaco, head of the sheriff's Office of Independent Review. "It will be interesting to see what the coroner's report says about the cause of death and whether the Taser had any role."

An autopsy is expected to be completed in a few days. Preliminary information from deputies indicated Silva was shot with the Taser's nitrogen gas-propelled darts and then shocked, Gennaco said.

The Sheriff's Department was one of the first large law enforcement agencies in the country to widely deploy this new generation of the Taser gun, which is marketed as a nonlethal alternative to firearms.

But civil rights groups and Amnesty International have criticized the use of the Taser because more than 230 people have died in the United States since 2001 after being shocked with the stun gun. Activists have noted that the device was not tested on drug-intoxicated people.

Sheriff's Cmdr. Sid Heal said in an earlier interview that although deaths have occurred after Taser use, none have been conclusively linked to the stun gun. He said the Taser had probably saved many lives by avoiding the use of deadly force.

The U.S. Justice Department is studying what role stun guns may have played in some custody deaths.

Responding to a neighborhood disturbance call Friday, sheriff's deputies tried to arrest Silva shortly after 11 p.m. in the 1300 block of East 79th Street, an unincorporated area of South Los Angeles, Whitmore said. Deputies found an agitated Silva in the front yard.

He fought with two deputies, and at least three additional officers arrived on the scene to provide assistance before the Taser was used, Whitmore said. During the scuffle, at least two of the deputies were hurt, including one who suffered a knee injury, he said.

Deputies handcuffed Silva and put him in the back seat of a patrol car, where he started kicking before having trouble breathing and passing out, officials said. Paramedics already at the scene treated Silva and rushed him to the hospital.

Man accidentally shoots self in buttocks

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) -- A Scottsdale man inadvertently shot himself in the buttocks Thursday morning. Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Daniel Leatherman, 26, heard a disturbance outside his apartment and saw a man he knew fighting with a cab driver.

Leatherman told police that the man, Cody Nunn, 25, had assaulted him in the past, so he grabbed his gun and went outside.

Leatherman told police that he accidentally dropped the gun while hiding it behind his back and shot himself in the derriere.

Nunn and Leatherman's friends took him to a local hospital. When police arrived, Clark said Nunn was drunk and disruptive. He was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct.

Leatherman was released from the hospital later Thursday. There were no phone listings for Leatherman or Nunn.

Tigers kill man who stuck his arm into zoo cage

By WASBIR HUSSAIN
Associated Press

GAUHATI, India � A man who stuck his arm into the tiger enclosure at a zoo in northeast India bled to death today after two big cats tore off his limb as his family and dozens of visitors watched, a zoo official said.

The man, identified as 50-year-old Jayaprakash Bezbaruah, avoided zoo safety precautions in an apparent attempt to photograph the two adult Bengal tigers up close, said Gauhati zoo warden Narayan Mahanta.

"The man ignored warnings from keepers, crossed the first barrier and stretched his hand into the enclosure that housed a male and a female tiger," he said. "The animals grabbed his limb and tore it apart at the shoulder."

Bezbaruah, who had been visiting the zoo with his wife and two children, was rushed to a local hospital but died of blood loss, said Mahanta.

"I have never encountered such a bizarre incident in my 11 years as a wildlife official. It was shocking," Mahanta said.

Baby's death blamed on thrown football

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- A 15-year-old boy threw a football against a pregnant teen's stomach twice, causing the baby to be born prematurely and die hours later, authorities said.

State prosecutors are reviewing the case to determine whether to file charges. Neither the boy nor the baby's mother, also 15, was identified.

The boy's age, intentions and state of mind will be considered, said Maria Schneider, assistant state attorney in charge of the Juvenile Division. She said she likely will make a decision in January; the boy is not in custody.

"This is not straightforward. This is not cut and dry," Schneider said. "This is a sensitive matter. We didn't want to rush to judgment."

Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper said the death was not an accident, noting the boy threw the football twice.

Under Florida law, anyone who causes an unborn baby's death as a result of an attack on the baby's mother commits a homicide, Perper said. "It's very unfortunate," he told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "Those things are really stupid things that shouldn't be done."

Perper declined to comment when reached by the AP.

According to a Broward County sheriff's report, the boy had asked the girl about two weeks earlier why her belly was "sticking out" and she answered that she was pregnant and due to give birth in a few months.

On Nov. 21, the teens were hanging out at Boys & Girls Club basketball court. He threw the football in her direction and she moved away. The boy then ran up to the girl, threw the ball at her stomach, picked up the ball and threw it at her stomach again, the sheriff's report says.

The girl gave birth the next day and the baby died soon afterward. The report does not say how far along the girl's pregnancy was.

Frank Till, CEO of the Broward Boys & Girls Clubs, declined comment.

� 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Roofing billionaire dies in fall through roof at home

Associated Press

BELOIT, Wis. � The 91st richest man in the U.S., a roofing company billionaire, has died after falling through his home garage's roof, local authorities said today.

Ken Hendricks, 66, was checking on construction on the roof over his garage at his home in the town of Rock Thursday night when he fell through, Rock County Sheriff's Department commander Troy Knudson said. He suffered massive head injuries, according to his company, ABC Supply Co.

Hendricks' wife called authorities and attempted CPR on her husband, he said. Hendricks was taken first to a Beloit hospital and then transferred to Rockford Memorial Hospital in Winnebago County, Ill.

He was pronounced dead there early this morning, Winnebago County coroner Sue Fiduccia said. An autopsy is planned for today.

Hendricks was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, the self-described nation's largest wholesale distributor of roofing. The Beloit-based company does about $3 billion in business a year.

Hendricks had a net worth of $3.5 billion in September, according to Forbes magazine. That made him the country's 91st richest person, according to the magazine's ranking of American billionaires.

But he seemed unfazed by his wealth.

"It doesn't make any difference to me: I can't spend it," Hendricks said in an interview with Inc.com in September 2006. "I'd have to sell the company, and I'll sell the company over my dead body."

Hendricks, the son of a Janesville roofer, worked side-by-side with his father growing up. A high school dropout, he started his own roofing business at age 21, according to his biography on ABC Supply's Web site.

Tired of having to deal with multiple suppliers scattered around the country, he and his wife, Diane, started a national supply distribution chain in 1982.

The company celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, with 6,000 employees in 390 locations nationwide.

"This is an enormous tragedy and a great loss to the family, associates and the community," ABC Supply said in a statement.

Hendricks and his wife also owned a variety of companies through the Hendricks Holding Co. and a property development group with more than 25 million square feet of industrial and commercial real estate.

The couple had seven children, according to their biographies.

Police: Man opens gift early; wife stabs him

Associated Press


ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. � A woman stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife following an argument that began when she accused him of opening a Christmas present early, authorities said Friday.

Misty Johnson, 34, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and battery, a felony, and misdemeanor domestic battery. Her husband, Shawn Fay Johnson, 34, was treated at a hospital for a wound to the chest, police said.

Misty Johnson made an initial court appearance Thursday in which she requested a court-appointed attorney, authorities said. She was released after posting bail, which was set at $7,500.

There was no telephone listing for her in Rock Springs.

Authorities said Shawn Johnson called 911 just before 1 a.m. Wednesday to report that his wife had stabbed him. He told police that his wife started arguing with him over his opening a Christmas present, according to court records.

As the argument escalated, Misty Johnson accused her husband of having an affair, authorities said. Police found a marriage license in the couple's apartment stating they were married in late September.

Police Detective David Thompson said he didn't know what the present was, or if it was intended for the husband.

Escaped tiger kills visitor at San Francisco Zoo
Animal shot after attack at cafe; 2 other people injured
Associated Press


SAN FRANCISCO � A tiger escaped from its cage at the San Francisco Zoo on Tuesday, killing one visitor and injuring two others, a newspaper reported.

The tiger was shot to death when it started moving toward a group of approaching police officers, said police spokesman Sgt. Steve Mannina. Several officers shot it with handguns, he said.

It was not immediately clear how the tiger escaped.

The attack happened in a cafe at the east end of the zoo shortly after the 5 p.m. closing time, the Chronicle reported. The tiger cages are near the center of the zoo.

The zoo was evacuated.

Police officers and firefighters are investigating. Police, fire and zoo officials could not immediately provide details on the attacks.

Officials at first worried that four tigers had escaped, but only one got out of its pen, Mannina said.

In December 2006, one of the zoo's tigers mauled a zookeeper during a regular public feeding. The 350-pound animal reached through the cage's iron bars and badly lacerated her arm. The zoo's Lion House was temporarily closed during an investigation.