Around the state

ANDERSON – A coroner says a man died of cancer just before his car crashed as he was driving himself to a hospital for treatment.

Madison County deputy coroner Marian Dunnichay said the man was suffering from terminal cancer. She said it wasn’t uncommon for the man to drive himself to the emergency room at Anderson’s Community Hospital for treatment.

The accident happened Monday evening, when the man’s car ran off the road and struck a tree. At first, authorities believed the accident was weather-related, as snow and ice made central Indiana roads slick.

But Dunnichay said the man didn’t die of injuries from the crash. She said he died of cancer and his car veered off the road. The man’s name was not immediately released.


Hunter dives for cover as gunfire erupts in woods

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. – A northern Indiana deer hunter said he narrowly escaped being shot when at least 40 bullets whizzed by, one just a few feet from his head.

Forty-year-old Charlie Smith was hunting Friday in a wooded area near Michigan City when the bullets began to fly. He hid behind a tree and called police, who advised him to stay there until the shooting stopped.

Fry ran to his truck when the bullets ceased, but the shots resumed as he ran.
LaPorte County Sheriff’s deputies later stopped a man who said he was firing a semiautomatic weapon in the area about 30 miles west of South Bend. The man told the deputies he thought a pile of wood chips was adequate to absorb the bullets.
Police said the man was not aware that Smith was nearby and did not arrest him.


Indiana soldier shot outside bar in Anchorage

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska authorities have identified a man killed during an altercation outside an Anchorage bar as a military police officer from Indiana who recently returned from Iraq.

Police spokeswoman Anita Shell said Evan Lee Minnear, a native of Anderson, was shot outside the Woodshed Bar early Sunday morning and later died at a hospital.

Shell said 26-year-old Vongdevane Vongthongdy was arrested Sunday and charged with second-degree murder.

The 24-year-old Minnear was a military police officer stationed at Fort Richardson in Anchorage.

Shell said Minnear was a member of the 425 Military Police Co. assigned to the Brigade Special Troops Battalion.

Minnear returned from a 15-month deployment to Iraq last February.