Eleven easy ways to get killed in the woods

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1996:

• An unidentified 12-year-old shotgunned
bowhunter Joseph P. Bordelon on October 5 in the Bogue
Chitto National Wildlife Refuge, near Slidell, Louisiana
––mistaking Bordelon, who survived, for a wild pig.
• On October 8, Todd Mercer, 24, of Lewiston,
Maine, tried to eject a shell from his duck gun and instead
killed hunting buddy Kevin MacDonald, 22, of Bath.
• Portland-area residents Kevin Lynn Gregory, 18,
David Allen Cook, 19, and Cory Alan Lewis, 18, were
arrested in early October and charged with two counts each of
aggravated murder. They are accused of taking fellow hunters
Ronald Cary Dunwoody, 36, and James William Boyles,
48, of Portland, to a Larch Mountain target shooting area and
using them for the targets.


• Alberta SPCA board member Arlo Stade, 57,
was killed on an October 30 hunting trip when a buddy chainsawed
a tree down on top of him.
• USA Today reported on November 1 that
Salvatore Colavito, 16, said he killed his father L e o n a r d
C o l a v i t o with a crossbow, during an argument about the
weapon, when he tripped over the family cat and the bow discharged.
• Hunter David Gamblin, 33, was shot in the head
on November 2 while sitting in the back seat of an Isuzu
Trooper on a road near Stanley, New Brunswick. As driver
Gene O’Donnell flashed the headlights, a 49-year-old fellow
hunter who has neither been named nor charged stood in the
middle of Old Royal Road, took aim, and fired right between
the lights, missing O’Donnell and another hunter in the front
seat but putting Gamblin in critical condition. “My eyes ain’t
too good. I thought you guys was deer,” the hunter who shot
Gamblin reportedly said before surrendering to police.
• Joseph J. Rodweller, 39, of Hamilton, New
Jersey, was charged with criminal threatening, assault, criminal
trespass, illegal possession of a loaded weapon, and illegal
possession of a Maine resident hunting license after
allegedly pointing his rifle at Deborah Lipsky, of Houlton,
Maine, who said she caught him crawling under a barbed wire
fence while she was posting her goat farm to keep hunters out.
Seeing the confrontation, Lipsky’s husband John brought a
.22 rifle, they told police, and pointed it back at Rodweller,
who retreated. If her husband hadn’t been there, Deborah
Lipsey said, “I would be listed as a hunting accident.”
• Scott DiBecelle, 28, was fatally shotgunned by
an unidentified turkey hunter on November 2 in the Paugusett
State Forest near Newtown, Connecticut.
• Don Lee McGuran, 39, of North Little Rock,
Arkansas, was killed when he fell from a tree stand near
Johnsville on November 11. “He was a very skilled hunter,”
said his boss, Danny McKinzie of Twin City Motors.
• Rene Vallee, 63, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts,
froze to death November 17 after he fell down and hit his head
while hunting near Chester, Vermont.
• Dragan Tatkovic, 34, of Astoria, New York,
was charged on November 21 with second-degree manslaughter,
hunting with a rifle in a shotgun zone, and hunting with a
forged license, after shooting fellow hunter Ralph Ielfield,
36, of Rhinebeck, from a deer stand. Tatkovic’s companion,
Ivica Catlak, 31, was also charged with illegal possession of
a rifle and hunting with a forged license.

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