Dropped rock ends couple's love story
 

<b>Dropped rock ends couple's love story</b>

<i>BY LYNN SAFRANEK AND MICHAEL O'CONNOR
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS

Michelle Fergus bought her first new car a few years ago with money she saved while working two jobs.

On Tuesday night, a landscaping stone thrown from an Interstate overpass did more to Fergus than break the windshield of that car. It took her life.

Fergus, 34, and her fiance, 25-year-old Chris Reinert of Council Bluffs, were driving north on Interstate 680 about 10 p.m. when the stone was thrown from the Sprague Street overpass. The couple were driving to the assisted living facility where they work.

Police are looking for a light-colored van that may have been on the overpass or in the area at the time, said Officer Cathy Martinec. The van may have had a "For Sale" sign, she said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide unit at 444-5656 or Crime Stoppers at 444-STOP.

The stone broke through the 2001 Mazda Protege's windshield, creating roughly a 10-by-12-inch hole, and hit Fergus in the face, said Sgt. Cathy Cook. A stone found inside the car matched the shape of the hole.

Reinert drove Fergus to Methodist Hospital, where she died, Martinec said.

"It's so cold and so chilling," said Fergus' mother, Nancy Fergus of Gering, Neb. "You don't believe it."

The overpass is one of the few freeway overpasses with walkways without a fence in the Omaha area.

Police consider Fergus' death a homicide because of where the stone landed, Martinec said.

"It would have to be thrown," she said.

At least two more incidents of people throwing stones off the same overpass this week have been reported, Cook said. One incident was reported Monday, she said, and the other was Tuesday.

Police were canvassing the area near the Sprague Street overpass Wednesday, seeking anyone who might have seen what happened, Martinec said.

That part of the Interstate was closed from about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday until 7:30 a.m. Wednesday while investigators examined the scene.

Fergus, who is originally from Hastings, Neb., and Reinert planned to marry next May in a midnight Renaissance wedding, her mother said.

Fergus and Reinert met in January through mutual friends, said Reinert's aunt, Sheila Payne of Omaha. The couple were living with Reinert's mother in Council Bluffs, she said, and had put down a deposit Monday on an apartment.

Recently, Reinert and Fergus had a handfasting ceremony, which is the pagan equivalent of a wedding, Payne said.

"Those two were so much in love that you would not believe it," she said.

Fergus loved caring for everything around her - whether it was driving from Omaha to Hastings to take her grandmother to garage sales or taking in abandoned ferrets, her mother said.

In a released statement, her family said they hope whoever is responsible for Fergus' death realizes the consequences - all for "the thrill of watching that object fall into oncoming traffic."

The Nebraska Department of Roads has responsibility for the Sprague Street overpass and most of the other Interstate bridges in the metro area, said Dale Butler, maintenance superintendent for the department's Omaha district.

The Sprague Street overpass, built in 1968, is not the only one in the metro area that has a walkway but no safety fence, Butler said. The L Street overpass on the Kennedy Expressway, for example, also lacks a fence.

Butler said new standards require fences for overpasses that are built with walkways. The standards took effect more than 10 years ago, he said.

Butler said the Sprague Street overpass is scheduled for replacement in the next several years as part of an I-680 widening project and would get a fence then.

Asked whether Tuesday's incident warrants building fences on the Sprague Street bridge and similar ones, Butler said fences are not a foolproof solution.

"A fence is not going to prevent some idiot from climbing up there and dropping something on someone if that's what they are intent on doing," he said. A fence "is like a padlock. It keeps an honest person out."</i>


This has been a problem in this area for some time now. It's only been a matter of time until someone was killed. I can't imagine why someone would get a thrill out of dropping items (ie bowling balls, concrete blocks, large chunks of ice in the winter, etc.) into oncoming traffic. What kind of sick and demented mind would even contemplate such actions.

shame.... hope that they catch the stupid asswipe...

It happened in a city near where I live too, and there was a fence on that bridge. Some ass made a hole, and dropped a rock, killing a driver.

wtf..... there are some sick people out there...

Thats a damn shame if I've ever heard of one.... with just 2 weeks left till my wedding, this kinda stuff scares me...

Incredibly sad that someone would and could do something like that. My heart goes out to the families involved. Hope they catch the person(s) that did it.

People are just messed up. How sad this is and the worst part is that it is so very senseless.
I hope they catch the idiot who did this....taking a life for the thrill of dropping a f***ing rock.
Takes away just a little bit of the faith I had in humanity. :(

I just can never understand why people like to drop things from bridges. Whats the point? Even more so though the people who drop large heavy objects. Some people are just lower animals.

The lazy mother fucker that doesn't want to put up a fence needs to get his ass whooped. Are these people really going to go so far out of their way to climb around the fence? ... Anything that will deter them even a little is an improvement.

I hope the catch them and charge them for murder. Sick bastards.

This is a terribly sad story. Just when things seemed on the up and up for the couple, some jackass had to do that. Does anybody contemplate the consequences of their actions anymore, or do people like this simply not care?

Acts like these make one consider reviveing medieval torture methods.....Flaying alive anyone?

That would make people think twice.

If they ever caught the person I think they would have a hard time of convincing him.

I don't know what these people are thinking. It's happened here with people throwing firecrackers and rubber balls. I hope nobody graduates to throwing rocks.

I like to throw rocks off of bridges into a river or off a waterfall. I'd never throw something into traffic. Those people should be thrown off the bridge into traffic.

Fucking bastard kids (I'm assuming). My own dumb-ass once considered doing that very thing and it's something I'm glad I decided against doing. It's a crying shame to hear about this happening to anyone. No one deserves that.

I think it's a little of both. It's terribly sad that this jackass ended these people's lives like this.

Didn't something like this happen about 4-6 years ago and get a ton of news coverage. I think it had something to do with an American base in Germany? Then again maybe my patchy memory is just making things up.

fuckin idiots.........i remember some people did this over the autobahn and killed some drivers.

there are idiots everywhere.

thats so sad.
what an absolute fuckwit.
hope they catch the culprit.
a lot of overpasses over here are caged in, so that no one can jump off, and no one can chuck rocks off at cars.

I remember this happened a few times in the summer of 96 while I was stationed in Jacksonville Florida. It was the same group of kids dropping chunks of concrete off of overpasses. I don't remember how many times they did it but i know they killed at least two people.

Assholes.

-Mikey

man that really sucks. I also hope that they catch them

they do that shit here too.a couple of weeks back as a matter of fact.

boy i tell ya'...if i ever see some sonofabitch on an overpass with a heavy object,i wouldn't hesitate to beat the fuckers ass.

15 years ago...my baseball coach got hit in the same manner.

he was never the same.

fuckin' idiots.

that is pretty sad, but karma is a bitch, he/she will get theirs..

Ranks in the same league as pratts who put sleepers/trolleys/debris across railway tracks trying to de-rail trains, which happens here in the UK far too frequently - the news a few months ago showed some kids age 4/5/7 building a blockade of old furniture etc across a railway line - they were caught by CCTV of a local superstore which happened to pan round onto the railway track at the time, with the guy operating it zooming in, thinking "wtf?" and phoning the police. Trains got stopped in time, thankfully, but it could have been a lot worse.

Wow furniture? I remember back when I was a kid flattening pennies had its mean streak because we stupid kids thought it might derail a train.

I did that too! My strangest memory of putting stuff on the track was crisps. I've never figured out whether it's becasue the trains was just so heavy and going so fast, or whether it was something to do with the electricity in the rails etc, but if you put a crisp on the line and let a train go over it, it doesn't break, just goes slightly soft and flattens! It stays perfectly intact, just flat! Cool!

I didn't even want to read this.
How sad.

The carelessness & selfishness of others will destroy life.

This must be the "new, cool thing" to do among juvenile delinquents. We had that exact thing happen in Richmond a couple of months ago. The couple had been married about a week. She didn't die, but was in critical condition for a while.

Suggested punishment, given we aint allowed to simply kill the b***ards off:
Place them in a small minibus (without forcing them to wear seatbelts). Drive this (RC) along at high speed, allow a few stones to smash through the windscreen and then overturn the bus, rolling it several times. Then maybe the little pr**ks would learn...

That happened to me and I was really pissed because it put a dent in my new trucks hood. I guess I was really lucky it could have been worse.

:( almost 8 long years
 

Michelle was my best friend. I remember the day she bought that car. Not a day goes by that I wish they had taken a different route to her work or she was just a few minutes early/late. The kids (they were all teenagers) were found who did this to her. Justice was served but for it being homicide.... I don't feel it was long enough.


RIP Michelle K. Fergus. You will never be forgotten.

fuckers should be dragged behind a truck- what kind of bastard does that?

A similar incident happened here. Some asshole managed to throw a large chunk of concrete over an eight foot high safety fence on an overpass onto the highway. A young woman driving on the freeway was killed.

I searched on-line for the story to see if a suspect was ever arrested, but I didn't find the story.

A South African friend of mine tells me this is a standard method used by bandit gangs.

Danged sick, whoever does it to whom.

they should convert it to a rock friend ;) or whatever they are called!

You're really on a whole spree of not bothering to read the threads you're posting in, aren't you?

How did the community miss this post? Googling your fiance's name, registering, and posting on Valentine's day 8 year's after her malicious death? I think someone is cutting onions in here. :sad: *sniff*

I saw it but it was the same day that someone else was here claiming to be the daughter of some teacher involved in some drug story (in a thread started by BoR, coincidentally), so I was being jaded.

In retrospect, that was probably unfortunate. It is a little dusty in here.

Why don't you read my post again!!! I never said she was my fiance. SHE WAS MY BEST FRIEND. I am not cutting onions... Stop being a dick and realize that some people have a hard time dealing with a death of a close friend. Yes, I posted 8 years after her death but I look up her name quite often. Valentine's day had nothing to do with it either.

Weirdly enough a couple of months ago someone tossed a rock that hit the passenger side B pillar of my car. Had I been going a little slower the rock would have hit the passenger side front window and more than likely struck my wife.

It still pisses me off...

Regarding looking up your friends name often, I guess that is healthy to some degree, but there is a point when it isn't. I don't know where that is, but when I talk to an old HS friend who's best friend died of cancer when we were 16, it's a little much when she's still talking about the loss and friendship 20+ years later. She's never moved past it.