According to the Belleville News-Democrat, a 28-year old man from St. Louis, MO is recovering in the hospital with minor injuries after being tossed off the Poplar Street Bridge into the Mississippi River on Saturday, June 28.
The man, whose name has not been released, "told police he had been drinking with two men on the Illinois side of the river. As the three drove across the bridge, the other two men stopped the car on the bridge and threw him off. The victim told police had had passed out before being thrown into the water. He said he has known the men for about three months, but doesn't know their names."
Authorities were called to the bridge after receiving reports from motorists who witnessed two men get out of their vehicle on the Poplar Street Brige and throw a body into the water. St. Louis City firefighter crews arrived on the scene and found the man "about 10 minutes later about three miles downstream" and rescued him from the river. "Fire officials say the victim was conscious and able to walk when he was found."
Sources
Man pulled from Mississippi River after being thrown from Poplar Street bridge, Belleville-News Democrat, 06/28/09
The man, whose name has not been released, "told police he had been drinking with two men on the Illinois side of the river. As the three drove across the bridge, the other two men stopped the car on the bridge and threw him off. The victim told police had had passed out before being thrown into the water. He said he has known the men for about three months, but doesn't know their names."
Authorities were called to the bridge after receiving reports from motorists who witnessed two men get out of their vehicle on the Poplar Street Brige and throw a body into the water. St. Louis City firefighter crews arrived on the scene and found the man "about 10 minutes later about three miles downstream" and rescued him from the river. "Fire officials say the victim was conscious and able to walk when he was found."
Sources
Man pulled from Mississippi River after being thrown from Poplar Street bridge, Belleville-News Democrat, 06/28/09
14 comments:
What is really interesting to me is that this person travelled 3 miles downstream in about 10 minutes! It is hard to imagine that the bodies of these other young men supposedly take a week or a month to go a mile downstream. Granted --- the river flows at different speeds in different locations in different times of the year, but this gives you an idea of how quickly the river really goes.
I'll be interested in knowing why these two "friends" decided to throw him in the river.
This man was very lucky to have survived. Thankfully people saw this happen or the ending may have been different.
I sometimes wonder if the publicity of men drowning under suspicious circumstances hasn't inspired poeple who want a man dead to just throw them into water.They are usually ruled accidents and so they may figure they'll get away with this too.
A revengeful person killed Brandon Scott. His first attempt at killing him was over a year ago. His brother stepped in front of him during gun fire and was killed instead.
Over a year later, this same person kills Brandon by putting GHB in his drink and then drowning him. Completely different MO, perhaps because he thought he could get away with it?
Food for thought
I'm sure there have been & will be some copy cats, but the only way to tell the difference is to really scrutinize each & every case.
This is very interesting. Thanks for posting this. I also made a post on my blog, I've noticed that a lot of traffic/comments are for my posts dealing with the smiley face killers.
Great blog overall, btw.
Some media outlets, within the links, are reporting he had only met the two men that same night.
There are so many conflicting reports!!!!!
http://www.fox2now.com/ktvi-man-falls-poplar-street-bridge-062809,0,1973123.story
Fox news says he was in the water for about 65 MINUTES.
Materialista,
You're right, the Riverbender link does say he had just met the men. I think most people would take this to mean he met them that night. I guess one could argue that this is just some poor writing. (In conversation, I often say I just did something when I mean I just did it a while ago.) But him meeting them for the first time that night sounds more logical(especially if he really did not know their names). It would be nice to see the police report.
Riverbender says he was found in 30minutes; Bellevue News Democrat said 10 minutes; Fox2 says 45. I have a feeling that some sloppy reporting going on regarding when help was called, when the firefighters arrived on the scene, and when they actually got him out of the water.
My guess is that since people called the police at the time he was being thrown in and he is still alive, officials must have responded rather quickly. I bet he was in the water 10 minutes before they arrived and maybe another 30 minutes before they pulled him out (amounting to 40-45 minutes spent in the water).
The most interesting thing about this to me is that it occured on the 28th of the month, because if you look at sites like theyaremissed and do some browsing a few years back a whole bunch of guys went missing on the 28th or 29th of the month and not all of them were found, not saying this is related as now that information is easily accessed on the internet but back then what are the odds? Like this year it seems that weird things have happened on 1/5,2/5,2/(1)5,4/5, of course with the 28th&29th that spans out to states like Arkansas and even(?) NY. I mean there's a pattern that you would only know about looking back on it, with 20/20 vision than at the time all those young men dissapered, right?
Sorry I meant 3/(1)5 as in 3/15 not 2./15. Also how long until we find out who it was that was recovered in Minnesota, I know it hasn't even been a month but do you think that, depending on who it is(if you know what I'm getting at) and how long that they were missing and the circumstances that actual news carriers(CNN,etc.) will even pay attention, sad to say but it seems like that they only would if it were that Peterson guys (ex?) wife or whatever, but am I mistaken in saying that they already (somewhere) said that it was a male body? What are your opinions?
Lee,
Here are the ones that I know about, but there are probably others:
Disappeared on the 28th:
Charles Blatz
Nate Williams
Kenji Ohmi
Brandon Novogroski
Disappeared on the 29th:
Craig Burrows
Disappeared on the 5th:
Ryan Katcher
Daniel Mun
Gordon Stumlin
Nick Garza
Trevor Boehm
Dan Zamlen
Found on the 5th:
Gordon Stumlin
Lee,
They said that the body found in the Des Plaines River was a male. Brad Olsen and John Spira have been ruled out.
No word yet on the body found in the Mississippi near Hwy. 52.
However, this may not ever be reported. It is my understanding that here in MN, autopsy reports are not released to the public unless the family consents.
If the identity and details were known before the autopsy, they could be released to the media. But since the identity won't be determined until during the autopsy, it will be up to the family whether or not to make this information public. And then, of course, it will be up to the media to decide if it is newsworthy.
Are there any updates on this story??
How can someone know two people for 3 months but not know even their first names? Wouldn't that kind of thing come up in conversation? "By the way, what IS your name?" Strange. Unless they were drug dealers or something of that sort, and the kid only knew them by their "street" names.
Post a Comment