Posted on 07/06/2006 5:18:32 PM PDT by Mr. Brightside
FBI investigates U.P. falling death
Thursday, July 06, 2006
MCBAIN -- The FBI has joined the investigation into the death of a Lower Peninsula woman who fell nearly 200 feet to her death at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore near Munising.
Juanita Richardson, 43, of McBain, died June 22 after plummeting from a cliff. Police have not characterized her death as accidental or suspicious.
The Alger County sheriff's office said it has formed a task force to continue investigating Richardson's death. Besides the FBI, it includes deputies from Missaukee County, where McBain is located, and neighboring Wexford County; National Park Service police; and Michigan State Police.
Woman dies in fall from U.P. cliff
Sunday, June 25, 2006
By Barton Deiters
The Grand Rapids Press
A northern Michigan woman became the third person with state connections within a week to fall to her death at a national park.
Juanita Richardson died when she plummeted nearly 200 feet from the Pictured Rocks cliffs in the Upper Peninsula, where she had been sightseeing with her husband of 21 years, Thomas Richardson.
The 43-year-old woman from McBain, southeast of Cadillac, was pronounced dead Thursday when she arrived at Munising Memorial Hospital, according to police.
Police are investigating her death, said Alger County sheriff's Deputy Steve Blank, the lead investigator on the case.
The woman had been hiking near Miners Castle, a landmark rock formation, Thursday with her husband when they stopped, and the woman began eating a snack around 11 a.m.
The two had been vacationing in the U.P. and also had visited the Keweenaw Peninsula, according to police.
"He said he had stepped away and gone to the bathroom and, when he got back, she was nowhere to be found," Blank said. "He looked over the ledge and saw her."
The husband went to a park visitor center and reported his wife had fallen. Rangers discovered the body near the waterline. They also discovered what is believed to be her snack and drink containers, along with her flip-flop shoe stuck in a tree below the cliff.
The couple had three children -- two daughters, ages 20 and 21, and an 18-year-old son. Thomas Richardson has returned to McBain, where funeral arrangements are pending through Burkholder Funeral Home.
Richardson's is the third death in the past week resulting from falls in national parks. Rockford School Board Vice President Deb Chamberlin fell 500 feet from a cliff at Yellowstone National Park on June 17, the same day Hope College graduate Darcy Quick is believed to have fallen near a 320-foot waterfall in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state.
A park ranger said the incident was the first of its kind in the 40 years since Pictured Rocks opened. The 73,000-acre park comprises sandstone cliffs, beaches, sand dunes, waterfalls, inland lakes and forests along 40 miles of Lake Superior shoreline in central Upper Michigan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Well, that explains why the FBI is involved.
Goodness sakes. When we were little our dad used to scare us making us believe we'd go over the cliff in the car. Of course he had total control but today I have a fear of heights.
Do we need a Special Investigator to see if Bush may have been involved in these 3 deaths??
Munching snacks and talking on the phone in your flip flops at the cliff's edge provides ample proof of an extraordinary lack of common sense.
As reported the husband's story sounds pretty weak. I wonder if 3 deaths in a week is off the scale statistically.
We had a Claremore woman speeding into a turn on a turnpike yesterday who lost control and rolled down into a pond drowning her and her passenger.
More likely Busch.
I posited at the time that it could have been opportunistic.
Any one person falling off a cliff at a national park is off the scale statistically.
I've been to lots of national parks and they have fine trails, fences, warning signs, and everything else, but you can still get hurt if you're not using common sense. And slipping in flip-flops isn't the hardest thing to do in the world either. However, I do wonder why the FBI is involved.
You don't want to go messing around on any kind of cliffs on Lake Superior's south shore. All drop, all rock. You'll get dead in a hurry, or busted up real good.
Think someone got the wrong idea from the Unger case.
You can't kill your wife on vacation.
The FBI is involved because the incident occured on federal land. Michigan does not have the death penalty. But a few years ago when a guy killed a girl, he took her body into a federal forest, which brought in the FBI and ultimately the death penalty.
Thank you for the information, that's very interesting.
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