State briefs

ROCHESTER -- A 34-year-old Rochester man was in custody and another man was being questioned in the death of an Illinois man.

Police found Kenneth Bell, 21, of Dolton, Ill., dead in the snow in a residential alley in this southeastern Minnesota city around 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

Police arrested one man next door and took another man into custody.

Witnesses said the victim was being kicked to the ground when he was stabbed.

GBL sales charges filed

STILLWATER -- Three men in Washington County are the first to be federally charged in Minnesota with selling the drug GBL.

In March, Kyle J. Anderson, 28, of Woodbury, was charged with selling the drug, which converts in the body to another illegal substance called GHB. Seventy 32-ounce bottles were found in his apartment, believed to be the largest seizure of the drug in the state.

Anderson, Jesse Garding, 22, of St. Cloud, and Christopher T. Casey, 37, of Lino Lakes, were indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday of selling GBL as a controlled substance.

The drugs are used recreationally, as a supplement by bodybuilders and to sedate victims in acquaintance rapes.

Good Samaritans killed on highway

SPRINGFIELD -- Two men who had separately stopped to help a stranded motorist were struck by a car from behind and killed, the State Patrol said.

Loren Batalden, 52, of Maple Grove, and Bradley Heilman, 29, of Springfield, stopped around 12:35 p.m. Saturday during whiteout conditions to help push a 17-year-old driver from a drift in the eastbound lane of Highway 14 in this southwest Minnesota city.

The driver of the second car, Thomas Ladwig, 36, of Richfield, didn't see the men until it was too late to stop. Neither driver was injured.

"They're just being good Samaritans trying to help this young man out," said State Patrol spokesman Tim Boyer.

St. Paul deaths ruled murder-suicide

ST. PAUL -- A man and his wife were found dead early Sunday in what police called an apparent murder-suicide.

Officers responded to a 911 call around 1 a.m. and found Amando Calderon, 38, and Marya Georgina Calderon, 23, dead in their apartment of apparent gunshot wounds. A gun was found in the apartment.

While both of them lived in the apartment, Amando Calderon apparently had been staying with friends at several different locations for several days before the killings, police spokesman Michael Jordan said.

Investigators confirmed that Amando Calderon called members of both his family and his wife's family and told them he had killed her and was going to kill himself, Jordan said. The calls were made around the same time as the shootings.

Marya Calderon's mother went to the apartment, found the bodies and called police, he said.

Three children -- one girl around 7 years old and two boys under age 5 -- were in the apartment but did not witness the shootings, he said. They were being cared for by relatives.

No charges expected in hunting accident

SIREN, Wis. -- No charges will be filed against a Minnesota man in the death of a man shot during the opening weekend of the gun deer hunt, a prosecutor said.

Merle "Butch" Highstrom, 55, of Eau Claire, was shot in the head by another hunter in the woods near Webb Lake on Nov. 19. Burnett County District Attorney Ken Kutz said Friday the shooting was an accident.

Kutz said he reviewed reports from the sheriff's department and the Department of Natural Resources and decided not to file charges against Matthew Kabus, 29, of Fridley, Minn.

According to Wisconsin DNR reports, Kabus spooked a deer, then shot at it as it ran. Kabus later found Highstrom about 100 yards from where the shot was fired.

Kabus fired the shot that killed Highstrom, the reports said.

Highstrom's death was one of two fatal shootings during Wisconsin's nine-day gun deer hunt.

Kia Moua Vang, 75, of Milwaukee, was found with a single gunshot wound at about 10 a.m. Nov. 24 under a tree stand about south of Neillsville, Coroner Richard J. Schleifer said.

He was apparently killed when his gun went off as he tired to pull it up to his stand with a rope.

Ramp meters could spread

ST. PAUL -- Dick Day hoped a study of the Twin Cities' freeway entrance ramp meters would spell their demise.

The Republican representative from Owatonna was sure the lights just clogged the system. His insistence was part of the reason for Minnesota's pioneering ramp-meter shutoff study. Now it appears that study could create more rather than less use of metering on urban freeways all across the nation.

Some meters in the Twin Cities area have been shut down permanently, and others have been changed since the study began.

Now the early results of the study are being examined by other state highway departments contemplating new or additional ramp meters.

Kansas City, for example, does not have any meters but plans to add them soon.

"We have proposed a pilot corridor, but we have not constructed it yet," said Sabin Yanez of the Missouri Transportation Department. "We knew this (Minnesota) study was going to be complete in 2001. It was good timing, because we were looking at implementation in 2002-2003."

Yanez is in general agreement with almost all traffic management professionals around the country that ramp meters help, rather than impede, traffic flow. He believes Minnesota's ramp-meter study can help persuade the public, too.