Today’s Rule-breaking Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Many of the accidental falls off the rim of the Grand Canyon seem so bizarre as to beg reality. How so many people could manage to mismanage their footing on such relatively easy terrain offering a dizzingly nearby vista that screams, “WATCH OUT, DON’T FALL!” almost defies belief. Consider the case of Richard Peña.
Late on a cold January day in 1985, Richard Peña and his family visited the West Rim to take in the view. Snow had fallen days earlier and the exact position – or edge – of the rim itself lay somewhat hidden under a few inches of frozen white fluff. For reasons known only to Peña himself, he climbed over the National Park Service safety railing at the First Trailview Overlook to get a couple of feet closer to the view.
His young son warned him, “Hey, the sign says you’re not supposed to go past the rail.”
Peña turned to him and allegedly said, “You gotta take some chances in life.”
Then, stepping on snow which had nothing underneath it but a few hundred feet of air, Peña vanished from view and plummeted into the frozen abyss.
By a strange coincidence, NPS Ranger Rod Losson was hiking up the Bright Angel Trail at this instant. He heard Peña scream. Losson looked up and watched Peña plunge more than three hundred feet.
Meanwhile, his shocked family tried to see where he had hit. Failing in this, they hurried to find an NPS ranger. They explained to the ranger what had happened. He activated an NPS search and rescue (SAR) chopper that launched almost immediately. The SARA personnel searched the cliffs and terraces in the fading light of dusk. Minutes after launching, they spotted Peña’s body 350 feet below the rim sprawled on a terrace. The body lay contorted, broken-looking, and apparently lifeless. In that the sun had set and darkness was falling and recovery of the body would be extremely risky for the rangers, the SAR team decided that it would be much safer to recover the body in the morning during daylight.
The family was appalled. What if Peña were still alive down there? They were so upset at this perceived self-serving attitude of park personnel that they threatened to sue the NPS. Meanwhile rumors circulated at the South Rim that a routine background check on Peña allegedly revealed that he was wanted for two counts of murder in Los Angeles County. (Law enforcement officials at the South Rim recall these rumors but, in 2000, were unable to substantiate their source.)
Park SAR personnel recovered Peña’s body the next day. A postmortem exam determined the time of death to have been upon impact.
Culled from: Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon
At times like this I wish I had artistic talent. Can’t you just see a cartoon man smugly stepping onto the lip of snow saying, “You gotta take some chances in life!” as his son points at the sign? It’s comic gold, this one!
Funeral in the Rain
KILLER’S END
February 12, 1932
Photographer: Osmund Leviness
Killer’s End. A dreary sky… a rain soaked grave… a casket borne by professional pallbearers… a weeping widow… a dozen mourners. Graphically the camera portrays killer Vincent Coll’s epilogue in St. Raymond’s cemetery.
Culled from: New York Noir: Crime Photos from the Daily News Archive