TimeSocket

 

Update

HUNTINGTON – It was the ending no one wanted to hear. Huntington Police detectives tell 13 News the body of Leah Hickman’s was found Friday evening. It was found in the basement of Hickman’s 8th Avenue apartment building near a common laundry area.

Police said they are unable to confirm that it is Hickman. In the words of Huntington Police Chief Skip Holbrook, “We strongly believe it is the body of Leah Hickman, but we can not be certain until the crime scene is processed.”

Officers with the Huntington Police Department notified Hickman’s family about today’s finding.

Authorities conducted an extensive forensic investigation at 403 8th Avenue. They were on the scene much of the day Saturday. Around 1:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon, the body was removed from the apartment and taken to the State Medical Examiner’s office in South Charleston. An autopsy will be performed and the state medical examiner will make a positive identification.

The Marshall student had not been seen or heard from since Friday, December 14th. The last contact with her was around 5:30 that evening when she called a friend from her cell phone. Hickman picked up food from a Huntington McDonald’s. The receipt for the purchase was found in her apartment as were Hickman’s car keys, sweater, jacket and the luggage she packed to go home for Christmas.

Hickman was supposed to meet a friend last Friday evening. When she did not show up, the friend got worried and called Hickman’s cell phone. There was no answer. The friend didn’t think much of it. However, she says she became very worried Saturday morning when she still had not heard back from the Marshall student.

The 21-year-old lived near Point Pleasant in Mason County. Her family has rallied community support for the past seven days as they have searched the area. Internet web-sites MySpace and Facebook have posted information about Leah asking anyone with information about her whereabouts to call Huntington detectives.

Although Huntington Police said they could not yet make a positive ID, Police Chief Skip Holbrook said at a press conference Friday night that they’re sure the body they found earlier Friday is that of missing Marshall Student Leah Hickman.

Hickman’s family was notified of the discovery and reporters were asked to give the family time to grieve before trying to ask them any questions about Leah’s death.

Hickman had been the object of an intensive search and campaign to find her by friends, family and complete strangers as well as by police for exactly one week from when she was last seen doing dishes at the very apartment where she was found in a crawl space, beside the common-area laundry room in the basement, Friday.

Reporters at the press conference asked and many in the community wonder how it is that Hickman’s body could have been right there all along, when early reports indicated that she was expected to be doing laundry the evening she went missing, yet police did not find her.

Most questions reporters asked about that were met with responses that indicated they could not be fully answered yet due to the on-going investigation.
Orginal Story

Leah Hickman, a broadcast journalism major at Marshall University, was reported missing Sunday after she failed to show up for her shift at a local Dress Barn Saturday night. The only thing noticeably missing from her apartment was her cell phone. (Family Handout)

Family and friends describe 21-year-old Leah Hickman as thoughtful, caring and loyal, the type of young woman who has no enemies and would call into work even if she was going to be just five minutes late.

They are all personality characteristics that have her loved ones growing increasingly concerned five days after the West Virginia woman disappeared without a trace.

Hickman, a broadcast journalism major at Marshall University, was reported missing Sunday first by her mother, Sherry Russell, and then by her father, Ronald Hickman, after she failed to show up for her shift at a local Dress Barn Saturday night.

Earlier Saturday, Jessica Vickers, Hickman’s 25-year-old half-sister, had stopped by their shared Huntington, W.Va., apartment at her mother’s request.

“I came by, her car was here,” Vickers told ABC News. “Everything looked normal with the exception of her purse and her keys lying there. At the time, I thought she maybe left with a friend for a couple of minutes.”

But calls to the college student’s cell phone, Hickman’s only noticeably missing item, were rejected. The voice mailbox was full.

Monday, their mother and friends of Hickman went to the state police. They also met again with Huntington detectives, Vickers said, laying out an hour-by-hour fact pattern.

From the telephone company, they received Hickman’s cell phone records and they called every number that was unfamiliar — an effort that turned up nothing suspicious, but helped get the word out to Hickman’s group of friends that she had disappeared.

The last phone call made by Hickman was to a friend around 5:40 p.m. Friday. There was nothing noteworthy about the call — Hickman said she was going to McDonald’s to get some dinner. The wrappings and receipt from her meal were found at the apartment.

Police have since seized Hickman’s laptop and have asked to take the woman’s car as well to process it for evidence.

Vickers said that her younger sister does not have any enemies that she knows of and has not had any recent boyfriends. Hickman had been on some dates with one man she had met recently, but their family contacted him and “he’s absolutely worried sick about all of this.”

She also said that Hickman is not a big “party” person and that despite her parents living in different places, everyone in the family gets along well.

Hickman’s friends, who have plastered fliers throughout the region, also are trying to elevate the case online, posting messages on her MySpace page and creating a Facebook group devoted to her search.

Roger Parker, a friend of Hickman’s, is the administrator of the Facebook group. Parker, who described Hickman as “caring, outgoing and loyal,” said that while friends and family are trying to remain optimistic, it’s difficult not to think about possible foul play.

“We keep trying to think of good outcomes,” Parker told ABC News, “but I don’t know what could have happened to her.”

Vickers said that her sister’s disappearance is just so out of character that something must be wrong. “She would never do anything to make our mother cry,” Vickers said. “She’s holding it together and she’s doing everything she can, but it’s getting harder and harder.”

Hickman has blue eyes and brown hair. She is described as 5 feet 2 inches tall and 130 pounds.

Body of Missing Marshal University student, Leah Hickman, May Have Been Found

Police may have found the body of who they believe to be Leah Hickman Friday night.

Studying broadcast journalism, 21 year old Leah Hickman was a well liked student of Marshal University in West Virginia.  Her family and friends thought of her as a caring and loyal woman.  She was the type of person who “would call into work even if she was going to be just five minutes late” (ABC News).  But when she never came to work at Dress Barn last Saturday, her friends and family began to worry.

The last known contact with Leah before her disappearance was a call on her cell phone with a friend.  There was no indication that anything was wrong.  Hickman mentioned that she would be doing laundry that evening.

While searching Hickman’s apartment building for evidence, authorities found a body in a crawl space in the basement of the building where the laundry room is located.  A positive ID has not been made, but the police have already notified Hickman’s family.

There are currently no suspects.

Ken Hendricks, the Janesville native who rose from roofer’s son to roofing-company billionaire, died this morning from injuries suffered in a fall at his Afton home Thursday night.

Hendricks, 66, apparently was checking on construction work at the home when he fell shortly after 10 p.m. Emergency crews were dispatched to his house in the 4000 block of Eau Claire Road at 10:18 p.m.

According to Rock County Sheriff’s Department reports:

Diane Hendricks, Ken’s wife, told responders that they had returned home about 10 minutes before the accident from a business party. Ken walked out the house door onto the floor above a new garage under construction to see how much work had been completed.

Authorities said the floor above the garage was covered with blue tarps held in place by two-by-four boards nailed down to the tarp in various places.

Diane went back to their vehicle to carry bags into the house. She couldn’t find Ken in the house and began yelling for him. She walked out onto the new floor above the garage but didn’t find him and went outside to look for him.

Diane found her husband lying on the concrete garage floor unconscious.

Diane called 911 and started CPR until deputies arrived at 10:25 p.m.

Town of Beloit EMS and city of Beloit paramedics responded, and Beloit paramedics at 10:48 p.m. transported Hendricks to Beloit Memorial Hospital. He eventually was transferred to Rockford Memorial Hospital, where he died at 4:48 a.m., Winnebago County (Ill.) Coroner Sue Fiduccia said.

An autopsy will be conducted today, she said.

Hendricks was chairman and chief executive officer of ABC Supply in Beloit, the largest wholesale distributor of roofing and siding materials, tools and supplies in the United States.

Earlier this year, Forbes pegged his net worth at $3.5 billion, a figure Hendricks often scoffed at, saying net worth was something that only existed on paper.

While Hendricks had risen to the top of the business world, he was deeply grounded in the scrappy lessons he learned while growing up in a small house on Janesville’s west side. He roofed houses side-by-side with his father, forming an “underdog” team that Hendricks said was often shunned by the “country club community.”

In 1982, Hendricks turned his vision for a dependable national distribution network into a reality: ABC Supply Co., which has grown monumentally with the help of his wife and partner, Diane, and seven children, most of whom are involved in businesses controlled by the Hendrickses.

Along the way, Hendricks has been responsible for hundreds of economic development projects that have improved the lives of thousands of people in southern Wisconsin and around the country.

While some people watched Hendricks buy up and develop Rock County’s vacant parcels like properties in a Monopoly game, he said his mission was anything but a game.

“I dropped out of school in the 11th grade, and I look in the mirror and say, ‘My god, how many people out there are like me?” he said in a 2005 interview with the Gazette. “What a great country this would be if we could replace Wal-Mart with companies like ABC.’”

While that may seem egotistical to some, Hendricks said his ego was always in check.

“All the people here are my friends,” he said of his co-workers in 2005. “I don’t feel that I’m any better than anybody who works here. And who the hell am I? I dropped out of school in 11th grade, a roofer’s kid. What gives me the right? There’s nothing elitist about me.”

Those who knew or worked with Hendricks agreed when interviewed this morning.

“The whole area—the state of Wisconsin—lost a visionary business leader, someone whose heart was firmly planted in southern Wisconsin,” said John Beckord, president of Forward Janesville, where Hendricks served on the board of directors.

“He had this remarkable commitment to help people who wanted to help themselves bootstrap their way up.”

Steve Sheiffer, Janesville’s city manager, called Hendricks “a great guy; one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.

“That’s how he treated everyone,” Sheiffer said. ” I feel terrible for Diane and his family.”

Beloit City Manager Larry Arft struggled to describe the loss to the city of Beloit from Hendricks’ death.

“Right now, everybody’s still in shock,” Arft said. “… Ken leaves a tremendous legacy, and it’s certainly going to be felt throughout this region and beyond.

“In addition to his family and friends, the entire city of Beloit will be in mourning over the loss of one of its leading citizens,” Arft said. “Ken has a tremendous legacy that he has built in Beloit, not only his personal business enterprises but his support for the city, the college and the many nonprofit organizations here in Beloit and the tremendous support he and Diane had for the arts.”

Arft also mentioned the Hendrickses’ ABC Supply, headquartered in Beloit: “We have a lot of confidence in the family members and the management cadre at the company. I’m sure it will work itself out over time.”

ABC officials were not commenting this morning on the their leader’s death. A company attorney was flying to Beloit to draft a statement that was to be released later today.

Employees and acquaintances contacted this morning were shocked.

“Ken had to be one of the most uniquely incredible individuals I’ve ever met,” said Jim Fitzgerald of Janesville, who had become a friend of Hendricks over the years and worked with him a couple of years ago on a proposal to move the Rock County 4-H Fairgrounds to a spot between Janesville and Beloit.

“He could look into a situation and see something so much different than you or I.”

Fitzgerald noted the irony in Hendricks’ death.

“He built his life and empire on roofing and construction, and look what happened,” he said.

Business partner Roger Frank had known Hendricks so long he couldn’t remember how they first met.

“It’s just going to be a heck of a loss,” he said. “My family knew him. Everyone liked him real well.”

Frank received a call with the news of Hendricks’ death as he was driving past Hendricks’ home this morning.

“Ken was a good business man,” Frank said. “There’s just no question about it. But he was fair.”

The business friends had taken family vacations together, and Frank had waved to Hendricks when their vehicles passed near his home earlier this week.

“He was one of those kind of guys that if somebody was the underdog, and he thought that they were OK, he would help them out,” Frank said. “That’s the way he was.”

Sally McGovern, executive director of the Beloit Janesville Symphony, was another in Hendricks’ long line of friends.

“I feel like there’s a huge Ken-shaped hole in the world,” she said through tears.

Ken Hendricks timeline

The rags-to-riches story of Ken Hendricks’ life will take a book to fully document. Here are a few of the milestones in the entrepreneur-philanthropist’s life:

Early years: He starts to learn about the building trades with his father, a Janesville roofing contractor. He drops out of high school in 11th grade and marries his girlfriend. He founds his own roofing companies, but after 17 years he gives his companies to his employees. He marries his second wife, Diane, in 1975.

1982—During the economic slowdown of 1982, Ken and Diane take a risk and acquire three supply centers from Bird & Sons. They found American Builders and Contractors Supply. Hendricks’ idea was that builders should be treated better by suppliers than the way he often was treated.

1987—ABC Supply has 50 stores. Ken Hendricks is named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

1992—ABC Supply celebrates its 10th anniversary and is the 12th-largest privately held company in Wisconsin, with 94 stores.

1997—ABC Supply is No. 321 on Forbes magazine’s list of America’s Largest Private Companies, with 205 stores.

1998—ABC Supply reaches $1 billion in sales.

2002—Hendricks’ real estate company buys Arrow Park, the former Parker Pen plant in Janesville. He turns the building into a home for growing businesses.

2003—Ken and Diane Hendricks donate $100,000 to the Janesville Performing Arts Center project. It’s one of countless contributions to a wide variety of causes over the years, including the Hendrickses’ role in revitalizing Beloit’s downtown.

2004—ABC Supply reaches $2 billion in sales. Hendricks Land Development buys a 270-acre parcel west of Janesville for a residential subdivision that will include about 100 homes.

2005—ABC has 5,000 employees in 300 locations in 45 states, including 12 wholesale stores in Wisconsin. It accounts for 20 percent of all roofing sold in the United States. Hendricks’ five-year plan is for ABC to have 10,000 employees, 500 wholesale stores and $5 billion in sales, which would represent 35 percent of the nation’s roofing market.

2006—ABC Supply moves up to No. 117 on Forbes magazine’s list of America’s Largest Private Companies. Inc. magazine names Ken Hendricks its Entrepreneur of the Year. ABC reaches nearly $3 billion in sales and averages a new store every one to two weeks. Hendricks works on his latest project to improve the education of local students. He flies the Beloit School Board to Pennsylvania to see a regional technical school that he hopes can become a model for Rock County school districts.

2007—ABC Supply receives the Gallup Great Workplace Award, one of only 12 companies in the world to be so honored. Hendricks has this to say about being named one of the globe’s top-performing companies: “It’s all about treating people right and showing respect.”

ABC Supply has over 350 centers in 45 states and is one of the nation’s largest wholesale distributors of exterior building products.

Forbes puts Hendricks at No. 107 on its list of the wealthiest 400 Americans, with an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion.

Hendricks Holding Co. announces it will build a $34 million wind turbine tower factory in Keokuk, Iowa, and hire 350 people. It’s just one more of a whirlwind of business deals Hendricks initiated over the years, often buying struggling companies and putting them back on their feet, or buying unused buildings and finding profitable uses for them.

Sources say two people were killed in a chemical plant explosion this afternoon on Jacksonville’s Northside. Smoke is billowing from T2 Lab, an industrial building, following the mid-afternoon explosion that witnesses said left the area looking like a war zone. Witnesses said debris from a mid-afternoon explosion went several stories into the air. Chris Parrish, 30, was working two warehouses down when he heard a hiss and then an explosion at about 1:30 p.m.

“In all seriousness, the explosion was four stories high,” he told the Times-Union. Part of the ceiling was sheared off and damaged flying trees and debris, according to a another witness who works across from the warehouse.

Shands Jacksonville spokeswoman Kelly Brockmeier said at least three ambulances were at the hospital. One man was taken into the decontamination center in the north garage at the hospital, as about a dozen people huddled around him.

Fire officials established a command post in the area. The Red Cross is establishing a shelter at a nearby school.

The company is the main office of T2 Laboratories Inc., a subsidiary of Millennium Chemicals in Iselin, N.J. A company web site says the business makes turpentine-based solvents, particularly a product called Ecotane, an octane enhancing additive for gasoline. The company web site refers to a new building at the location, but records on building permits were not immediately available.

There was a fire and series of explosions at the same site in June 1998 that forced the evacuation of about 100 residents. The cause was never determined.

The Florida Department of Transportation is reporting that Faye Road is closed in both directions near the explosion. New Berlin at Faye Road also is closed. Fire officials have evacuated the area within a half-mile radius.

A Times-Union reporter at the scene reported seeing flames several stories high.

Derek Pratt, 24, was flying a remote control airplane at a field about a mile away when he heard a series of explosions and a smoke plume extending hundreds of feet in the air.

“Those shock waves came straight through these hills,” he said. “It was just like Hiroshima.”

Pratt said he went up a hill and saw another explosion.

“It was like a great ball of fire in the air,” he said. “Pink insulation from the building was falling on us. Clouds of it.”

The explosion sent about 50 workers in a warehouse across the street diving to the floor. Another witness said pieces of the ceiling of his building was sheared off in the blast. “You saw pieces of pipe 20 feet long flew across the street and through the ceiling. If there was somebody in there pray for them,” Tony Padrigan said.

Another witness said flying debris reminded him of being back in Vietnam. “It was like napalm in the morning. Stuff was still blowing up when I left there,” said Howie Gipson.

A company in a year-old building three doors from the explosion suffered severe damage said John Swearingen, who was at the scene shortly after the explosion.

“It blew our roof off and blew the safety doors right off the hinges,” he said. “It picked one guy up and threw him into a rack but he did not get hurt.”

Swearingen said no one in the Masthead Hose Company building was injured.

Swearingen said he works for a business that represents the industrial hose company.

A passing truck driver said heat from the fire melted his cell phone. He searched a truck at the site of the explosion but found no one inside. He and another truck driver used fire extinguishers to keep the fire from spreading to a nearby woods.

Update: 4 people have now been confirmed dead, 14 injured.