The Bad Air Sponge

WICHITA, Kansas, Feb. 13, 2008компютри – Wichita Police say a body found in a north Wichita basement appears to be a drug-related homicide.

Acting on rumors that a body was buried in the basement, the current residents of an apartment in the 1500 block of N. Market started digging to see if they were true. Not long after, they smelled a foul odor and called police.

The apartment building in north Wichita was swarming with police again in Wednesday after getting a call from the residents about a foul odor on Tuesday.

“We responded, and were able to excavate that hole that was in the basement and recover the body of what appears to be a white female,” said Lt. Ken Landwehr with the Wichita Police Department.

Police say in addition to acting on the rumors about a body being buried in the basement, the current residents had another reason to be suspicious.

“From all indications, there had been newly poured scrap-like concrete in the bottom of the basement, and it had been covered by a large piece of plywood,” said Landwehr.

Once police began their investigation it didn’t take them long to name 26-year-old Chilo Hernanzez as a suspect. They say Hernandez was once a tenant in the apartment where the body was found.

“I used to come in here and chill and watch TV, watch movies with him, and Chilo, I can’t believe that he killed whoever that is,” said Kacy Reynolds, a friend of Hernandez.

But police have developed a timeline and they say Hernandez lived in the apartment during December and that’s when the victim’s family reported her missing.

Police say the victim and suspect were aquainted through drug activity.

“I just think it is tragic that this is happening so close to my sister’s house, and near a school. I hope the best for Cilo, I hope it ain’t true, but you never know,” said Ben carrier to noise ratio Busby, a friend of the suspect.

Police are still waiting for autopsy results which will help determine a cause of death and a positive identification of the woman, although they say they know who she is by talking to family members.El juego del reglas poker basicamente es un juego donde un jugador compite en contra de otros jugadores for el bote.

CEDARBURG - At least 10 dead cats and 14 living ones were taken from a Cedarburg home early Friday afternoon by Ozaukee County Humane Society employees after police found deplorable conditions inside the home at N73 W6957 Walnut St.

“It’s just a horrible situation,” said Beth Maresh, director of program services for the Wisconsin and Ozaukee humane societies.

WHS officials donning protective gowns, gloves and rubber boots continued to search the home for cats on Monday, certain that they would find more hiding in debris scattered throughout the house.

“It’s just very dirty, and smells of cat feces and urine,” Maresh said. “When you walk in, you don’t see cats anywhere. But they’re there, hiding in the basement, in the ceiling. I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be more dead cats.”

The home is owned by Michael Rossobillo and Carol Munden.

Munden acknowledged Monday that the home was in bad shape, but said she moved out of the home two years ago. Her estranged husband, Rossobillo, was supposed to be cleaning the home and taking some of the cats to the humane society, she said.

“I knew it was messy inside. I knew it had to be cleaned up,” said Munden, who lives in a condominium elsewhere in Cedarburg and suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis. “He was supposed to be taking care of it.”

The Cedarburg police and fire departments were called to the home at 5:51 p.m. Thursday after a request from We Energies regarding a natural gas odor coming from the home.

According to a We Energies employee, a neighbor reported the odor coming from the property.

The We Energies employee did detect high levels of carbon monoxide coming through the outside furnace vents of the home.

Area residents who’ve been pinching their noses because of their neighbors’ smelly outdoor pets could soon get some relief.

Proposed changes to Gaston County’s animal control ordinance would give the county more authority to address odor-based animal nuisances.

The rewrite of the entire ordinance was presented to Gaston County commissioners last week.
They could approve it as soon as Feb. 28.

“It strengthens and clarifies the current ordinance,” said Animal Control administrator Reggie Horton, speaking to the county board Thursday. “It gives us the ability to address the number of animals involved in a nuisance, the size of the area they’re on, and whether the owner should have to put down lime or another odor-control substance.”

Odor complaints tend to be some of the most common involving pets — particularly multiple dogs being housed in an outdoor pen, Horton said Monday. But the language in the current ordinance doesn’t define odor alone as a valid nuisance.

Animal control officers investigating such complaints have had to look for other wrongdoing that may be causing the odor, even if a foul smell is obvious. But there’s often no evidence of animal cruelty, the animal lot is clean and all the pets have up-to-date shots, Horton said.

“If you’re the one smelling it when the wind’s blowing in the wrong direction, that can certainly be an obstacle to you enjoying your own property,” Horton said. “But there was really nothing there allowing us to enforce it.”

A reeking pet wouldn’t be allowed to wreak havoc if the ordinance changes.

“We were left with a situation that really fell through the cracks,” Horton said. “Now that crack’s been filled in.”

The ordinance change would also give animal control officers more authority to address dangerous nuisance situations. Pet owners would be required to fix a broken fence that a dog might be able to escape through, for example.

“Before, we could only suggest that,” Horton said. “Now we (would) have the authority to require the owner to do it.”

Horton worked on the rewrite in recent months with the county’s Animal Control Task Force Advisory Board.

Commissioner Pearl Burris Floyd said the attention to updating the ordinance was timely and important. As pets become more prevalent in people’s lives, the county must ensure its laws are up to speed, she said Thursday.

“The multi-billion-dollar pet industry is too big to be ignored,” Floyd said.

You can reach Michael Barrett at 704-869-1826.

Loren Schmidt saw the backhoe digging in a gravel-less part of a county gravel pit and wondered what was up. He became more curious when he saw truck after truck heading for the site. Then he detected an offensive odor.

When he got a look at what was going on, he was appalled. The county was dumping some smelly material into a 15-foot deep trench that appeared to have reached the groundwater.

All of this sounds worse than it really is, but even the sanitized version does not sit well with residents of the town of Bloomer, who met with DNR and county officials Tuesday.

Loren Brumberg and David Lundberg of the DNR’s waste management department told the 19 people gathered that the material was mostly soil mixed with animal waste and was not toxic, and the water in the trench did not come from the water table that fed their wells.

Still, resident Jean Turner said the bottom line was that the group wanted the material dug up and removed. That is not likely to happen any time soon, but County Administrator Bill Reynolds was agreeable to testing the residents’ wells to give them some peace of mind.

According to Brumberg, the story started in 1936, when a rendering plant was opened on a site just northeast of Chippewa Falls. It operated until 2002.

The county took the property for back taxes, and inherited a problem, including petroleum storage tanks, various toxic compounds and contaminated soils. The county received DNR grants for assessment and clean-up.

“They basically cleaned up the site, took care of all the contamination, taking care of all the waste materials,” Brumberg said.

The county then put the property on the market for industrial development and a drywall company bought it with plans to put in a $1.4 million distribution center.

During site development work, another problem was found. An area was discovered in which animal wastes and some crushed steel barrels had been buried.

The owner tried to haul the material to a landfill, but it became cost prohibitive. He was ready to back out of his project.

That’s when county economic development and DNR officials quickly got together, and within the space of a few days in late October came up with a plan to bury the waste at the gravel pit, which had been used at one time to dispose of road-killed deer.

Lundberg said the DNR was fine with leaving the material where it was, as tests showed it was not toxic nor a threat to groundwater. However, the owner wanted it removed at reasonable cost. And the DNR granted a permit for disposal at the gravel pit site, which led to the scene Schmidt witnessed.

The crushed barrels, which Brumberg said once held cooking oils, were hauled away for recycling. The other material was a mixture of mostly soil and decaying organic material from animals.

Neighbors protested, but after a meeting with DNR officials at the site, the situation quieted down and the project was finished. Tuesday’s meeting made clear residents were not satisfied.

Brumberg explained that the permit required the material to be at least 10 feet over the water table. He said the water in the trench leached from the side of the trench. He described it as water that soaked in at the surface, hit a layer of impermeable material and sort of pooled underground until it came out into the trench and pooled at the bottom of it.

That it was still above the water table from which wells draw water is seen by the level of a nearby pond created by the gravel pit and the depth of area wells, Brumberg said.

He also explained the ground has the ability to clean up bacterial contamination in the material, the same way it takes care of septic system drain fields and manure spread on fields.

Still, residents envisioned the water leaching into the buried materials, then down into the groundwater.

“Everything’s going to leach right into our drinking water,” said Eugene Kerckhove.

And if it wasn’t any worse than manure, why couldn’t it be handled in the same way, he asked.

“Why can’t the material just be spread out on the land and let the rain take care of it?” Kerckhove asked.

Brumberg said that would have worked, too, and might have been preferable.

Bloomer Town Chairman Vern Kellen complained that the project violated a town ordinance that prohibited the spreading of waste in the township that did not come from the township.

The DNR officials acknowledged that the town should have been notified, but were unsure if the ordinance applied.

Removal of the material would be expensive, as would setting up monitoring wells around the site to test any effect on groundwater. The offer to test residential wells to ensure the water was safe was the only solution that appears to be moving forward.

However, County Board member Paul Michels of Bloomer has a suggestion that received wide support. He noted that the gravel pit, or at least part of it, is near the end of its useful life, which means a closure plan will be implemented. Since closure involves earth moving, it could include a digging up of the burial site.

That plan may be for another day. For now, the materials remain buried in the town of Bloomer.

CEDARBURG - Police are considering animal neglect charges against a Cedarburg couple.

Police were called to the filthy house last week. In the video, you can see piles of trash piled up in the kitchen.

At one time, at least 24 cats were living in the home located on Walnut Street.

A picture shows a filthy bathroom in the home.

We are told a husband and wife lived at the home.

Crews found 10 dead cats inside the home last week. Workers were able to rescue 14 cats. They were taken to the Ozaukee County Humane Society for treatment.

Some of the rescued cats could be up for adoption as soon as next week.