Ancient cave in western France contains rare finds, experts announce

| Friday, June 2, 2006 5:46 PM PDT ∞

Associated Press

VILHONNEUR, France -- A 27,000-year-old human skeleton laid out in a room decorated with ancient art and a crude representation of a face are among the rare finds in a cave in western France, officials said Friday.

The state took over ownership of the cave in the Vilhonneur forest on May 12, the French Culture Ministry said in a statement.

It was only the second time that a human body is known to have been placed in a decorated cave from the Upper Paleolithic Period, the ministry said.

A single face drawn in the cave could be among the world's oldest known graphic representations of a human face, said Jean-Yves Baratin, archaeology curator for the Poitou-Charentes region.

The face is "represented in the most elementary way," Baratin said.

He said two pieces of calcite that split were used to form the hair with two black horizontal strokes depicting the eyes. A vertical stroke formed the nose and another horizontal stroke the mouth.

Cavers exploring part of a grotto once used to dispose of animal carcasses discovered the cave in December. The find was announced in February but it was not until Friday that information about what it contained was disclosed.

The famed Lascaux Cave in Montignac, in the southwest Dordogne region, has long been considered one of the finest examples of cave paintings. However, that art dates to 13,000 years, making the Vilhonneur art much older. Another cave, Chauvet, discovered in the mid-1990s in southeast France, features some 300 examples of Paleolithic animal art, some dating back 31,000 years.

Baratin underscored the significance of the human skeleton, a young male, placed inside a decorated room. He said two rib bones were analyzed at a Miami laboratory, dating the skeleton at 27,000 years.

The only other case of a skeleton being found in a decorated cave room was in the hamlet of Cussac, a grotto experts say was as important for engravings as paintings are for the famed Lascaux caves.

The Vilhonneur cave features a series of decorations, including a negative imprint of a right hand, surrounded in black, on a wall, made by blowing color onto the area once the hand has been placed there, experts said.

Experts plan to secure the Vilhonneur cave and carry out research likely to last several years.

Toll from methane gas explosion in Turkish mine rises to 17


ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- The death toll from a methane gas explosion in a Turkish coal mine rose to 17 on Friday after firefighters, troops and miners worked through the night to recover the bodies.

Another five miners were hospitalized with methane gas poisoning and 35 escaped unharmed. The blast collapsed one of two shafts in the mine near the western town of Dursunbey in Balikesir province late Thursday.

"We heard a big bang and dust covered everywhere, there was an intense smell of gas," Dogan News Agency quoted one of the hospitalized miners, Ibrahim Demirbas, as saying. "All of the dead were our friends, they were burned to death."

The owner of the private coal mine, Erhan Ortakoylu, said the explosion occurred nearly 500 feet below the surface.

Officials worked through the night under floodlights to pull out the bodies of the dead.

Halil Akcan lost his 19-year-old son, his son-in-law and his brother-in-law, Dogan News Agency reported.

"My son had started working in the mine just recently," the 47-year-old said. "I would never think that such a thing could happen."

Another grieving father, Naim Turhan, said his son left his job at a restaurant to work in the mine to earn the equivalent of $400 a month.

Two of the miners, 18-year-old Salih Evcimen and 22-year-old Ismail Aslantas, were killed on their first day of work at the mine, Dogan reported.

"Of course our grief is enormous, but we are also happy for the survivors," Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said from the site.

Responding to a question over frequent mine accidents, Guler denied that government inspections had overlooked any potential problems.

"No, unfortunately these are possible accidents in mining," Guler said. "They measured the methane gas level just a few minutes before the blast, but the gas level apparently suddenly increased."

The Labor Ministry said Friday it had launched an investigation.

Accidents are not uncommon in Turkish mines due to safety violations, outdated equipment and high concentrations of methane gas.

A year ago, six miners died of methane gas poisoning when a shaft collapsed in a coal mine near the Black Sea port of Zonguldak. A methane explosion in April 2005 killed 18 people at another coal mine in the town of Gediz in western Kutahya province.

In Turkey's worst mining disaster, a gas explosion killed 270 workers near Zonguldak in 1992.

3 injured in manufacturing plant fire in Ohio


PANDORA, Ohio (AP) -- An explosion and fire ripped through a manufacturing plant in northwest Ohio, injuring at least three employees and leading to the evacuation of several hundred homes, authorities said.

The fire was under control by late morning at Pandora Manufacturing, about 50 miles southwest of Toledo.

Homes downwind from the facility were evacuated because of the risk of fumes from a peroxide product that can cause lung problems, Riley Township Fire Chief Bob McCoy said. The injured workers, taken to hospitals in Lima and Toledo, reported having breathing difficulties.

Pandora Manufacturing company makes containers and fills bottles, cans, drums and powder bags for chemical manufacturers.

The fire apparently began along a line containing brake fluid, one of the substances the plant puts in the containers, officials said.

Teen ordered held in death of young snorkeler off Key West


KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) -- A 13-year-old boy charged with speeding away after his boat struck and killed a young snorkeler on Memorial Day will be kept in custody until his formal court arraignment later this month.

Monroe County Circuit Judge Sandra Taylor on Thursday ordered that Christopher J. Ruiz remain at a juvenile detention center for 21 days. Prosecutors had asked for the order, saying Ruiz was a flight risk because he had fled the scene of the accident.

Ruiz, who is charged with vessel homicide, is accused of driving his 18-foot skiff over 6-year-old Charlie Smith, who was snorkeling off Key West with his father and a sibling, and then crashing into the Smiths' boat.

Coroner: Office missed chance to avoid mistaken identity after van crash


INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The coroner who misidentified a college student killed in a van crash said Friday the "entire disaster" could have been avoided if a deputy coroner had not urged a relative to avoid looking at the body.

The office initially identified the victim as Whitney Cerak, and Cerak's family took the victim's body home to Gaylord, Mich., and buried her.

They learned a month later that they had buried the wrong girl -- their daughter was alive but severely injured, and the parents of the crash victim they had buried had been keeping a bedside vigil over Cerak not realizing who she was.

Grant County Coroner Ron Mowery said the "entire disaster" could have been avoided if Cerak's sister -- moments after she was told Cerak was dead -- had not been advised not to look at what was actually the body of Taylor University classmate Laura VanRyn.

"It was out of concern for how she would handle the shock of that," Mowery said. "We reflect now that perhaps that would have negated this entire disaster."

Mowery said that the victim's body was seriously damaged but that her head had not been heavily wounded.

Cerak, who strongly resembled VanRyn, was in a coma and had a swollen face and broken bones, cuts and bruises and brain damage from the April 26 crash.

Only in recent days, as she regained consciousness, did she start saying things that didn't make sense to the VanRyn family. She replied "Whitney" several times after VanRyn's parents addressed her as "Laura," Spectrum Health spokeswoman Anne Veltema said.

During a recent therapy session, staff members asked her to write her name, and she scrawled "Whitney Cerak."

Taylor spokesman Jim Garringer said there was an earlier hint of the mix-up -- VanRyn's roommate had questioned two weeks ago whether the seriously injured young woman recuperating at a Michigan hospital was actually VanRyn. He said the school requested official reports about the crash from accident investigators and the Grant County coroner's office but took no other steps to avoid upsetting the families.

Mowery has said that wallets and purses were strewn on the ground at the accident scene. Based on information from emergency workers, Taylor staff and friends of the victims, rescuers mistakenly identified the body of VanRyn, 22, as Cerak, then 18.

The misidentification has led to scrutiny of local coroners, many of whom lack formal medical training yet are required to identify victims in chaotic conditions.

Forensic experts said misidentifications are rare. But they are more likely in cases where officials rely on visual IDs instead of medical tests -- as was the case with Cerak and VanRyn.

"It's one of forensic anthropologists' greatest worries where the person you say it is comes into the lab and says 'I'm not dead,"' said Joseph Hefner, assistant coordinator of the University of Tennessee's forensic anthropology center.

Cases of mistaken identity have happened before.

Two years ago, Oksana Bohatch learned her 16-year-old son, Nathaniel Smith, had been misidentified by authorities and was about to be buried by another family. It wasn't until a funeral for Smith's friend, Patrick Bement, that Bohatch discovered she was at the bedside of someone else's son.

"My heart aches," Bohatch, who lives in Michigan, wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press after learning of the Taylor University case. "It is truly beyond belief that this could happen again."

Similar cases have been reported in the last decade in Alberta, Canada; New Jersey; Kentucky and Florida.

Now that the Taylor University families have learned about the tragic mix-up, VanRyn's family has planned a memorial service for Sunday in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Cerak's family is now providing updates about Whitney's condition on the blog that VanRyn's relatives had started. Whitney's sister, Carly, wrote Thursday that Whitney has begun to realize that she was in an accident and that her family wasn't with her for a while.

"Soon after we saw Whitney, our family met with the VanRyns and our joy for ourselves was pushed aside by the pain we felt for them," Carly wrote. "It is hard because our joy is their pain.

"The VanRyns have been amazing to Whitney and we are privileged that if under any care besides ours that she was under their great care. However, we know the pain they now feel all too well and our hearts break with them. "

Married pastor pleads guilty to rape after disappearing with teenager for a month


NORWICH, N.Y. (AP) -- A former Baptist pastor who touched off a nationwide search in March when he disappeared with a 15-year-old farm girl for a month pleaded guilty Friday to rape.

A judge dismissed 16 other state charges against Lewis J. Lee, 54, in exchange for the guilty pleas.

Lee, who is married, had been the girl's pastor at Christian Baptist Church in the central New York town of Sherburne before the two disappeared in mid-March from her family's dairy farm. The girl left willingly, but the state's legal age of consent is 17.

The pair set off a nationwide search, traveling as far west as Wyoming before Lee was arrested in April in Hagerstown, Md. The girl was reunited with her family.

Lee faces a total of 9 1/3 to 28 years in state prison on the seven rape counts. He also faces a five- to 30-year federal term after pleading guilty Wednesday to taking the teenager across state lines to have sex with her.

Sentencing on the federal charges is Sept. 22. Sentencing in the state case has not been set.

Authorities: Man used student's ATM card hours after she was strangled with bikini top


GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) -- Police investigating the slaying of a Clemson University student who was strangled with her bikini top released surveillance photos Friday of a man trying to use her bank card a few hours after the killing.

Prosecutor Bob Ariail said the man, who had covered most of his face with bandanas, tried unsuccessfully to use Tiffany Marie Souers' card six times at two cash machines. The man was driving an older sport utility vehicle.

"Hopefully someone will recognize an individual who has that type of headdress or bandanna, who drives a vehicle of this type, who is exhibiting the behavior profile," Ariail said.

Souers, a 20-year-old civil engineering junior from Ladue, Mo., was wearing only a bra when she was found May 26 on her bedroom floor in her apartment a few miles from campus. The bikini top was around her neck.

Ariail said the crime was sexually motivated, but he said tests so far have not indicated she was sexually assaulted. He said more tests were being done.

The prosecutor urged people to be aware of any man exhibiting "any inappropriate or aggressive sexual advances."

Also Friday, Souers' driver's license was found on the side of a road about six miles from Clemson. It was found by man picking up recyclable trash along the road.

On Thursday, hundreds of mourners gathered in her Missouri hometown for her funeral.

"She was just an extraordinary child. She loved life," family friend Delia Garcia said. "She could have done anything she set her mind to. The world was at her feet."