Other days
100 YEARS AGO Jan. 4, 1918
LAMAR — Mrs. John A. Nation, aged 68 years, was burned to death at her home near this place on Tuesday afternoon. She was alone when the accident occurred. Mr. Sooter, a neighbor, found her body almost burned to a crisp. He was passing by the house when he noticed smoke pouring from a window. He went in to investigate and discovered the bedclothes on fire. He threw the burning clothes outside and went to another room, where he found Mrs. Nation’s body. 50 YEARS AGO
Jan. 4, 1968 BENTON — Capt. Fred J. Puckett Jr., a native of Sheridan, recently played a major role in removing a live grenade from a fellow soldier’s leg in Vietnam. Puckett, who has been in ordinance disposal work since entering the Army 18 years ago, and Maj. N. M. Nachef, commanding officer of the Second Surgical Hospital at Chi Lai, Vietnam, took the projectile from the leg of Pfc. Wilbert Eisenger of Elkton, Mich. Puckett described the incident in a recent letter to his wife, Jackqualine, who lives at Benton.
25 YEARS AGO
Jan. 4, 1993 What caused a Saline County man to shoot his wife and then himself on New Year’s Day may never be known, Sheriff Judy Pridgen said Saturday. “They were just having a family disturbance,” Pridgen said of David Ray Rusher, 31, and Jacquelyn Jay Rusher, 36, who lived at 161 Denny Drive in the Salem community near Benton. Pridgen said Friday that David Rusher apparently shot his wife in the chest with a shotgun and then shot himself once in the head about 5:45 a.m. The gunshots killed them both.
10 YEARS AGO
Jan. 4, 2008 Investigators seized 36 pit bulls — several with cuts and sores — as well as dogfighting paraphernalia Thursday in two raids of suspected dogfighting and training facilities in rural Saline County. The raids were the culmination of a six-month investigation by the Saline County sheriff’s office, the Humane Society of the United States and other agencies into a potential dogfighting ring, Saline County Sheriff Phil Mask said. “The last six to eight months, we have been getting intel about dogfighting,” Mask said. Investigators served search warrants Thursday morning, but no arrests had been made by Thursday afternoon, Mask said.