« on: April 08, 2004, 11:19:24 AM »
I would say the gene pool was served a little blessing today, as was our community and society.
This was on the TV news and in the Newspapers yesterday here in the Minneapolis area:
Body in St. Paul building's vent was would-be burglar, police think
Curt Brown, Star Tribune
April 8, 2004BODY0408
Brett McIntosh was fixing gutters at noon Wednesday atop the one-story retail building his father owns on St. Paul's University Avenue. While the ladder was up, his dad told him to check the roof for glass or nails.
He found something far more grisly. A vent cap had been wrenched off and a jacket sat nearby.
"I looked down and saw a man's arm stuck in the vent," McIntosh said. "At first I thought it was a bum looking for a warm place to sleep. But why crawl down there? Then I realized he was probably dead."
Paramedics at the scene confirmed that the 46-year-old St. Paul man was dead. The body was dangling toes-first a few inches from the floor of a furnace room. His body might have been there for a few days, according to St. Paul Police Department spokesman Paul Schnell. The man's name wasn't immediately released pending notification of relatives.
Schnell said that police suspect the man was attempting to break into a check-cashing business. But even if he had squeezed through the vent, he would have had no access to the check-cashing office, video store or insurance agency that share the building just east of Dale Street on the north side of University Avenue.
"To our knowledge, he had no connection with the owner of the building or any of the three businesses," Schnell said.
The Ramsey County medical examiner's office made a preliminary ruling that suffocation was the cause of death. Homicide investigators are also investigating. Schnell said the dead man had no history of felony convictions in St. Paul.
"It's a bad way to go," McIntosh said. "I'd bet he was in there for four or five days and probably ran out of water and passed out and died."
Curt Brown is at curt.brown@startribune.com.
Logged
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
