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Friday, September 30, 2005

Is it just me or is there something wrong here?

Alright well as some of you might know I'm addicted to weird news stories. For some reason I just really enjoy these news stories that show the downfall of society as we know it. Well tonight I came across this one which I'm pasting below. However I came across a few things that just didn't make sense to me in the story and since I have no one to discuss this with at the moment I'm doing it via my blog.

"LA CROSSE, Wisconsin (AP) -- Seth Hammes was filming in the woods when his camcorder recorded the crack of gunshots, the 17-year-old's screams and the voice of the alleged shooter, promising help that never came.

Authorities say they might never have learned what happened to Hammes, who later died in the woods.

"But right next to him was the videotape," Monroe County Sheriff Pete Quirin said Thursday. "That's when we knew we had a homicide on our hands."

After viewing and listening to the tape, police tracked down 24-year-old Russell Schroeder, who now faces charges of reckless homicide and reckless injury. Schroeder was being held on $250,000 bond. If convicted, he faces up to 85 years in prison.

Family members said Hammes and two of his friends had gone bow-hunting Saturday morning in the woods near Little Falls, about 35 miles northeast of La Crosse.

Hammes put down his bow and picked up his camcorder that afternoon.

According to the criminal complaint, he was shot in the pelvis and then the heart. His camcorder fell to the ground but caught the sound of the shots and his own screams.

The tape shows a person Quirin identified as Schroeder in a nearby field, telling Hammes he would call for help on his cell phone. He then said he couldn't find a signal but promised to go get help.

Instead, authorities say, Schroeder went to a birthday party, home to play video games and then to his job as a custodian at the Army's Fort McCoy near Sparta.

Schroeder didn't call anyone because he was scared he would get in trouble, the complaint said. He told police he thought he was shooting at a squirrel until he heard Hammes scream.

After family and friends reported Hammes missing, police used bloodhounds to find his body in the woods that night.

Investigators initially believed he had just died in the woods -- there was no blood to indicate foul play, and he had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle, which left only small wounds, Quirin said. Then authorities saw the camcorder tape.

Hammes' family gathered at his grandparents' home in La Crosse after Hammes' funeral on Thursday.

Ed Hammes said his nephew loved to tinker with the family's lawn mowers and research pyrotechnics. He hung out with the La Crosse Skyrockers fireworks club, which produces the city's New Year's Eve fireworks.

"He was shy for the most part, but he'd go out of his way to help you," Ed Hammes said."


So now my problems with this story are:

1) It says he went bow hunting with 2 friends, where were these two friends when he was shot? If they were nowhere in the area why and what was he filming?

2)The alleged shooter thought he was shooting at a squirrel? What a freaking 6 foot 150 lbs. (I'm assuming) squirrel? And if this is true, why is this stupid 24 year old in the woods shooting squirrels in the morning? And why do the shots go from the pelvis to the heart, that's a pretty big jump in distance considering the size of a squirrel. And shouldn't he have heard the screams on the first shot? Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps when shooting squirrels you must do rapid fire shots all over the place because I guess those darn squirrels can really move.

3)The investigators thought he "just died in the woods"? So because the bullet wounds are small he must have simply died and not have been shot? I certainly hope not all investigators are this unobservant, there may not always be a video tape there to do your job for you. And it just really bothers me that the very first quote is the Sheriff saying that upon seeing the videotape is when they knew they had a homicide on their hands. Seriously, the bullet wounds didn't say anything to you at all?

Alright, sorry if this was a little off beat posting here, I just really get into these types of stories yet this one really bothered me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It was Wisconsin. You were expecting Sherlock Holmes? Lucky for the sheriff the video tape was there, otherwise it would another mysterious death in the woods. There are a lot of dumb people in the world.