Posted on 08/12/2011 3:43:34 PM PDT by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
ABBEVILLE, La. — The narrow, brick chimney of a Louisiana bank became his tomb for 27 years and now Joseph Schexnider will be laid to rest Sunday in a proper grave with a proper farewell by his family.
Still, his brother Robert wonders, how did he wind up in that chimney? Didn't anyone hear any cries for help? Was it a robbery attempt gone awry, an accident or something more sinister?...
[snip]
"Everybody has an opinion," said Lt. David Hardy, chief of investigations for the Abbeville Police Department. "But no one has evidence to say one way or another."
If Joseph Schexnider did cry out for help, no one heard his pleas. The stench of death was never detected.
The decades rolled on until last May when a construction worker helping turn the bank's vacant second floor into offices tugged some fabric out of the chimney and was showered with old clothes and human bones.
[snip]
From the way the skeleton was recovered, Hardy said it appeared Schexnider went into the 14-inch-by-14-inch chimney feet first. Because the chimney narrowed sharply at the bottom, he then was apparently unable to maneuver his way back out.
There was no way out at the bottom of the chute, which ended in a 3-inch opening to a narrow fireplace on the second floor of the bank building.
"He was stuck with nowhere to go," Hardy said. If he had called for help — Hardy points out — he would have been 20 feet above the street, and encased in bricks.
"His voice would have been carried up and away from the street," Hardy added.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Hold ma beer and watch this sh**.
Nawwwwww. Couldn't have been a bank robbery...
He’s dead Jim.
That must have been a rough way to die.
I get claustrophic just reading this.
ick.
Was he reported missing shortly after December 25?
His brother won't guess why Joseph went into the chimney, but acknowledged in his final days in town that Joseph had gotten in "with a bad crowd." He was carrying no burglary tools when found or anything to carry away money if he had planned to rob the bank.Plaisance said he could see it as a misconceived burglary plan on Schexnider's part, however.
"He was the kind of guy who would do things without really thinking them through," Plaisance said.
Oddly enough, in 27 years, nobody ever even bothered to report him missing.
Talk about adding insult to injury.
I wonder if after all that, they wound up cremating the body?
Yep.
Positional asphyxiation. You read similar stories once a year or so.
The article says he was always a drifter who spent time traveling with a carnival. The family assumed he had just taken off again.
Thief Jerky.
EWWWW!!!!
*Snicker-eew*
I guess he died when he caught the flue.
He missed Ronald Reagan's second term.
What a pity.
Holy Crap!! looking at a tape measure,14X14 and tapering in!!! that guy had to be drunk to go in there!
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