thedrifter
10-03-07, 08:55 AM
Marine vet’s falling death puzzles police
The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Oct 3, 2007 7:33:11 EDT
LA CROSSE, Wis. — No one may ever know whether a drunken ex-Marine who fell to his death from a Mississippi River bridge was trying to kill himself or simply stumbled over a railing, Police Chief Ed Kondracki said Tuesday.
Christopher Melancon, 24, an Iraq war veteran, fell from the Cass Street Bridge into a dark, algae-coated Mississippi slough early Sunday morning. His blood alcohol level was reported as 0.24 percent, three times the legal limit in Wisconsin.
A witness at the foot of the bridge saw Melancon fall but didn’t know whether he climbed over the bridge’s 42-inch-high pedestrian railing or somehow tripped over it, Kondracki said.
The chief said it’s hard to imagine someone stumbling over the railing, but investigators don’t know where Melancon was going or what he was doing along the railing.
“We’ll never know what was in Christopher’s mind at the time he went over the railing,” Kondracki said.
Anthony Triplett, Melancon’s roommate and himself a Marine, said he grew up with Melancon in Milwaukee.
He said Melancon, who was living in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minn., and working as a supply clerk, never really talked about his tour in Iraq since returning from there two years ago but never would have killed himself.
Ellie
The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Oct 3, 2007 7:33:11 EDT
LA CROSSE, Wis. — No one may ever know whether a drunken ex-Marine who fell to his death from a Mississippi River bridge was trying to kill himself or simply stumbled over a railing, Police Chief Ed Kondracki said Tuesday.
Christopher Melancon, 24, an Iraq war veteran, fell from the Cass Street Bridge into a dark, algae-coated Mississippi slough early Sunday morning. His blood alcohol level was reported as 0.24 percent, three times the legal limit in Wisconsin.
A witness at the foot of the bridge saw Melancon fall but didn’t know whether he climbed over the bridge’s 42-inch-high pedestrian railing or somehow tripped over it, Kondracki said.
The chief said it’s hard to imagine someone stumbling over the railing, but investigators don’t know where Melancon was going or what he was doing along the railing.
“We’ll never know what was in Christopher’s mind at the time he went over the railing,” Kondracki said.
Anthony Triplett, Melancon’s roommate and himself a Marine, said he grew up with Melancon in Milwaukee.
He said Melancon, who was living in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minn., and working as a supply clerk, never really talked about his tour in Iraq since returning from there two years ago but never would have killed himself.
Ellie