The skeleton of a German retiree who tied himself to the top of a tree and shot himself to death nearly 30 years ago has been found by a hiker. An 18-year-old hiker discovered a bone in the forest last week and brought it to police. They searched the area and spotted the skeleton hanging about 11 meters up, near the top of the spruce tree.
"After searching the area we found the skeleton up in the tree with the pistol hanging on a rope next to it," police spokesman Leonard Mayer said. Police were able to identify the man through DNA testing and an artificial hip.
A man faces an arson charge after telling authorities he wasn't thinking when he decided to use gasoline for cleaning up his apartment, and then tossed a lit cigarette into a pile of gas-soaked cushions and clothes. A criminal complaint filed Monday quoted a 47-year-old man as saying he knew gasoline is flammable and never should have used it. The complaint said that when the fire began Friday, he didn't pull the fire alarm but instead shouted "fire" a couple times and walked to the Menasha police department for an ambulance to take him to the hospital where he was treated for burns. Firefighters said the blaze extensively damaged the apartment and caused heavy smoke damage throughout the building, putting tenants of 11 other units out of their homes.
Sheriff's deputies said a Texas woman started a brawl at a wake in Arkansas when she arrived with a beer can in her hand. The woman, 52, faces a third-degree domestic battery charges, as does another woman, 46, over the March 29 fight. Deputies said the first woman arrived at the Christies Chapel Church with a beer can in hand and that she refused to leave.
The first woman then allegedly grabbed a man by the face, leaving scratch marks on his lower right cheek and causing him to bleed. The man's mother, then allegedly slapped the woman and kicked another woman in the chest. A sheriff's report claimed the woman with the beer became "passively aggressive" with deputies and said that "no backwood country cop" was going to take her to jail.
A woman accused of driving 103 mph with her 10-year-old grandson was on leave from a job at the state Driver and Motor Vehicle Services. The 53-year-old driver was arrested Sunday on charges of reckless driving and reckless endangering. Investigators said she told them she was teaching her grandson about the dangers of speeding, telling him not to drive as she was about to.
Authorities in Ohio say a man has been charged with drunken driving after crashing his motorized bar stool. Police in Newark, 30 miles east of Columbus, say when they responded to a report of a crash with injuries on March 4, they found a man who had wrecked a bar stool powered by a deconstructed lawn mower. Twenty-eight-year Kile Wygle was hospitalized for minor injuries. Police say he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after he told an officer at the hospital that he had consumed 15 beers. Wygle told police his motorized bar stool can go up to 38 mph.
