[CedarDave]

Strange story. Sad for the lady and her family.

[To Hell With Poverty]

Kitty ping. Poor lady!

[PeterFinn]

Sad and stupid. I feel very bad for her husband who no doubt has a tremendous amount of guilt over this.

[RDTF]

strange and disturbing

[TexasCajun]

I can just imagine my wife doing the same thing.

All logic and safety go right out the window when it comes to animals, any animal, not just our pets.

[Mr. K]

“The barrel, which Solano said was tied to a door so it wouldn’t tip”

WHY WOULD IT TIP?

[Sacajaweau]

Rainbarrel Death: We looked up news articles of folks who had died in a Pioneer cemetery we were restoring.

The woman was normally locked in her room...obviously for alzheimers or the like. Someone forgot to lock the door and lo and behold..she committed rain barrel suicide.

Clue: She was very wealthy.

Grandpa had one. I'd say it's really pretty hard to fall into a rainbarrel.

[proudpapa]

She was obviously a democrat.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

She must have hit her head on the bottom of the pool when she dived in....

[Sacajaweau]

Wouldn't ice form at the top of the barrel first?

So you bring a barrel in...out of public view...wife falls in and dies.....while you're away and there's a wet cat running around.

Can someone explain how hubbie knew the cat was in the barrel and that's why wifie was in the barrel?

Why not just stick a broom, a coat..or anything in the barrel so the cat could latch on.

This really doesn't pass the smell test.

[JoanVarga]

55 gallon barrel big enough for a person to fall into... 1/3 full of ice, about 20 gallons... how warped did the bottom of that barrel have to be to worry about it tipping?

Why worry about ice in a barrel?

Wait! Come back! I have lots more questions!

-Joan

[MotleyGirl70]

Already posted (yesterday).

[CougarGA7]

Only in New Mexico.

[Sax]

It is a mystery why anyone would dive head first into a Yellowstone hot spring merely to save a dog, but that is precisely what happened on July 20, 1981. David Allen Kirwan, 24, of La Canada, California and his friend Ronald Ratliff, 25, of Thousand Oaks, parked their truck at Yellowstone's Fountain Pain Pot parking lot at around one o'clock that afternoon. While the men looked at the hot springs, Ratliff's dog "Moosie," a large mastiff or great dane, escaped from the vehicle and jumped into nearby Celestine Pool, a hot spring later measured at 202 degrees F. The dog began yelping, and someone nearby quipped, "Oh, look, the poor thing!"

Kirwan and Ratliff rushed to the spring and stood on the edge of it. Ratliff and another bystander both saw that Kirwan was preparing to go into the spring, and the bystander yelled, "Don't go in there!" Kirwan yelled back, "Like hell I won't!". Several more people yelled not to go in, but Kirwan took two steps into the pool then dove head first into the boiling water. One witness described it as a flying, swimming-pool-type dive. Visitor Earl Welch of Anniston, Alabama, saw Kirwan actually swim to the dog and attempt to take it to shore, go completely under water again, then release the dog, and begin trying to climb out.

Ronald Ratliff pulled Kirwan from the spring, sustaining second degree burns to his feet. Welch saw Kirwan appear to stagger backwards, so the visitor hastened to him and said, "Give me your hand." Kirwan offered his hand, and Welch directed, "Come to the sidewalk." As they moved slowly toward the walk, Kirwan managed to say, "That was stupid. How bad am I?" Welch tried to reassure him, and before they reached the walkway Kirwan again spoke softly, "That was a stupid thing I did." Welch was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that he walking with a corpse. He could see that Kirwan's entire body was badly burned as the skin was already peeling off. It seemed to Welch that Kirwan was blind, for his eyes appeared totally white. Another man ran up, began to remove one of Kirwan's shoes, and the men watched horrified as the skin came off with it. "Don't do that!" said Welch, and Kirwan responded very tiredly, "It doesn't matter." Near the spring, rangers found two large pieces of skin shaped like human hands. Kirwan experienced third degree burns over one hundred per cent of his body, including his entire head. He was taken to the clinic at Old Faithful, where a burn specialist who was coincidentally on duty could do little for him other than to pump in IV fluids at a high rate. Bob Carnes, a ranger who saw him at the clinic, remembers thinking that Kirwan did not have a chance for survival. "He was blind and most of his skin was coming off." Ratliff's dog died in the pool and was not rescued. Oils from its body later made the hot spring have small eruptions. Kirwan died the following morning in a Salt Lake City hospital. In the men's truck, rangers found the park's warning literature and pamphlets. Kirwan and Ratliff had not read any of them.

[citizen]

Probably an accident...but they will investigate, won’t they? You know, the usual, debts piled up, life insurance, etc. Was this a portly or a frail woman incapable of getting out of a barrel?

Thinking it over, I can see how an older, less that trim and fit person could not be able to grasp well enough to pull or push your body up from the bottom of a barrel.

[shekkian]

Detectives said the kitten is alive, and most likely climbed out over Hill.

Well, that's awfully nice of her.

[metmom]

The barrel, which Solano said was tied to a door so it wouldn't tip,

He probably had her *take a look* at something inside and tipped her in. Tied it down so it wouldn't tip over and let her live to tell about how he tried to murder her.

[AuntDebbysNiece]

Just so you know, that was my Aunt Debby. And I know for a fact that my Uncle Ben didn’t kill her. He’s a humble and good man. He loved Deborah to death. He wouldn’t do something like that. I wish people would just stop blaming him. It wasn’t murder. It was simply an accident.

[cherry]

yes, strange and sad......sometimes I feel just clumsy enough to do such a thing....the other night our old computer chair went backwards and it wouldn’t right itself....it was all I could do to grab the desk and pull.....

[CedarDave]

o.k. guys, here is an update on this story from this morning's Journal. Only new information is presented:

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said his investigation is also not finished. "The autopsy has been done, but we are waiting for toxicology and organ testing before the investigation is complete," Solano said. But he added that, "based on the evidence so far, there has been no indication of foul play."

According to the Sheriff's Department report:
Hill found his wife "face down in the barrel in the fetal position, her feet not clearing the top of the barrel." After calling 911, "he attempted to get Deborah out of the barrel. He said he tipped the barrel over on its side and tried to pull Deborah out by her feet. Due to the small diameter of the hole (15 to 18 inches) in the top of the barrel, he was unsuccessful.

Solano said his e-mail inbox has been flooded by correspondence from people across the nation who disagree with his department's assessment that Hill's death was an accident. "Mostly from amateur CSI experts and medical doctors," Solano said. "For the most part, people don't believe our conclusions.

"There was this medical analyst from Mississippi who sent a list of questions she wanted answered," he said. Solano said that the evidence in the case so far is "irrefutable" and that most of the theories expressed by those who have contacted his office are without merit.

"There's been some allegations of foul play, and we've looked into them," Solano said. "But nothing has panned out."

Solano said his department would look into any new evidence that comes forward, but he stands by the conclusion that Posen Hill's death was a "tragic accident. Her hips went in and it made it harder for her to lift herself out," he said. "She had no leverage to pull herself up.

The entire story can be found here:

Family Recalls Bizarre Tragedy

A picture of the barrel is on the front page of today's journal. But is very small.

I did a google search and found one that is the same size (60 gallons) and color: