Sunday, January 2, 2005

A 22-year-old Walpole Island woman is facing charges of criminal negligence causing death and failing to remain at the scene of an accident after a hit-and-run accident there yesterday that killed Wawa's Elvis Leeroy Swanson.

Police say the woman owned a van that was later found abandoned in a cornfield five kilometres from the scene of the accident.

She initially told investigators that her vehicle had been stolen.
However, Lambton OPP say that the woman then provided information in a police interview that pointed to her as the driver at the time of the accident.

Swanson, who'd been living recently in Walpole Island (near Sarnia), was pronounced dead at the scedne of the accident.
Eyewitnesses told police that Swanson was walking down a roadway when he was hit by a silver van just before 2 a.m. yesterday.

The witnesses say they saw the van stop briefly as at least four people got out. The group then returned to the vehicle before it sped from the accident scene in an easterly direction.
Swanson was a pedestrian on Altiman Road, described as a rural road without sidewalk, at the time he was hit.

Chief John Trudeau of Walpole Island Police asked for the OPP's help with the investigation.

Lambton OPP Technical Traffic Collision Investigators, the Forensic Identification Unit and Lambton OPP Crime Unit assisted in investigating Lambton County's first fatality of 2005.


Trucker injured in highway crash

On December 31st 2004 at 10 p.m., a northbound tractor trailer ran off Highway 17, 15 kilometres south of Wawa and crashed into a rock cut spilling its load of chocolate bars onto the roadway.

The 29-year-old trucker from Surrey BC failed to negotiate a curve and drove 127 meters off the highway before coming to a stop against the rock cut.

The driver was taken to Lady Dunn Hospital in Wawa and later flown out to Sault Ste Marie Hospital with undetermined injures.
The northbound lane of Highway 17 will be closed for most of the day on Monday January 3 to transfer the load onto another truck and tow the truck out.

Wawa OPP charged the driver with failing to drive in marked lane and fail to wear seatbelt.


OPP investigating stabbing of Gogama man

(Timmins, Ontario) – On Jan. 01, 2005 Police responded to a domestic assault complaint in Gogama Ontario.

A 41-year-old Gogama man had been stabbed and was transported to the Timmins District Hospital, by ambulance on Jan. 01, 2005.

A 24-year-old-female has been charged with attempt murder and has been remanded in custody awaiting a bail hearing.
The victim who was subsequently transferred to a Sudbury Hospital, by air ambulance, is in stable condition.

The investigation is continuing by members of the South Porcupine OPP, with assistance of the OPP Criminal Investigation Branch.