Pipe bomb found in backpack at ‘Bloom Beach’

BLOOMSBURG — A State Police bomb squad from the Lehigh Valley was called to “Bloom Beach” off Irondale Road Saturday after Bloomsburg University students found a backpack containing what appeared to be an explosive along a stream bank, police say. 

Bloomsburg Police Chief Roger Van Loan said the device appeared to be a homemade pipe bomb inside a backpack whose specific purpose was to carry the pipe bomb. 

Van Loan, who recently returned as Bloomsburg Police chief, said no type of identification was found inside the backpack. 

Teen injured in Friday morning crash

FRANKLIN TWP. — A 17-year-old driver sideswiped another vehicle Friday morning, sending his own car careening down a small embankment and onto its roof, police say.

Bradley Klaus, Elysburg, was headed north on Route 487 with passenger Nicholas Dorkoski, 17, around 8 a.m. when he crossed into the opposite lane near J & D Campground, according to Locust Township Police Chief Allen Breach.

The sharp curve about a mile and a half north of Knoebels Amusement Resort has been the site of “far too many” accidents, Breach noted.

Cops: Mom charged with hiding her son

DANVILLE — After police found a missing 11-year-old Danville boy hiding in the closet of a New Jersey home, his mother faces serious criminal charges.

Officers say Magaly Perez, 35, of Hamilton Township, New Jersey, concealed the wherabouts of the child and interfered with his custody. Both are felony criminal charges.

Eleven-year-old Andray Knighton had been in the care of his grandmother Naomi White in Danville, charges state. She won primary custody of the boy through a 2015 Luzerne County court order, and he had been attending Danville Middle School.

Cops: Man admits to striking two with car at BU, fleeing

BLOOMSBURG — A man drove into two people with a car Saturday on the top level of Bloomsburg University’s parking garage before before fleeing — dragging one of the victims nearly 40 feet, arrest papers say.

Elijah Eric Malik Reese, 19, of Philadelphia then allegedly abandoned the white Nissan Sentra about a block from the Tri-Level garage. 

He ran away before police could catch him on Saturday afternoon, according to charges, but the whole thing was caught on video by a bystander.

Crash sends woman to hospital

SOUTH CENTRE TWP. — A 22-year-old woman and her Dalmatian escaped serious injury when she lost control of her car Thursday morning and crashed into a stream, police say.

Savannah Johnson, 29 Prossedo Drive, Apt. 202, Danville, was headed north on Bissets Lane around 9:15 when her Chevrolet Cruze drifted off the right side of the roadway, according to South Centre Police Chief Bill Richendrfer.

Johnson’s passenger tires dropped into an unmarked culvert before she over-corrected, crossed the road, and slammed into the small waterway on the opposite side.

Police, coroner investigate at Hess Fields

MAHONING TWP. — Police agencies and a representative of the Montour County Coroner’s office converged on Hess Fields around 8:30 Tuesday night.
Cpl. Jonathan Swank, Danville’s officer-in-charge, released no details, but said more information would be released by Wednesday morning.
The recreation area was the site of a suicide in early November. A man’s body was found after two days of searching.
A resident of Meadow Lane, near where law enforcement assembled Tuesday, said she finds the incidents concerning.

Judge drops first-degree murder charge in toddler death

BLOOMSBURG — A man accused of beating a toddler to death in Berwick won’t face a first-degree murder charge that carried the possibility of the death penalty, a judge ruled Tuesday.

The prosecution hadn’t presented enough evidence to show that Michael Crimi, 21, intentionally caused the death of Isabella Brown, 3, in a Freas Avenue apartment in November 2017,  ruled President Judge Thomas A. James Jr. They also hadn’t shown Crimi had a history of abusing the girl.

Fire tears through Fishing Creek Twp. home

FISHING CREEK TWP. — A fast-moving fire destroyed a 169-year-old farmhouse Monday morning, leaving a family of four homeless.

The blaze at 380 Winding Road, Orangeville, was called in by a passerby around 11 a.m. and was fully engulfed when the first firefighters arrived just minutes later.

“It was 99% flames when we got here,” said Orangeville Fire chief Kevin Boyd. “It was really going.”

Rig crashes into Italian eatery near Bloomsburg

SOUTH CENTRE TWP. — A tractor-trailer loaded with cattle crashed into A Taste of Italy restaurant in the Central Plaza along Route 11 here late Friday.   
The rig smashed through the front windows to the inside of the eatery.
There were no apparent injuries.
A man could be seen seated in a township patrol car at the scene.
No further details were available by press time.

A full story and more photos are planned for Sunday's print and online editions.

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