Wisconsin Sheriff Rules Death Of Minnesota Mayor Wasn't Suicide

When the mayor of St. Anthony Village (MN) went down in his Cessna 172 earlier this month, Burnett County (WI) Sheriff Dean Roland wondered if it was suicide. Roland says, on the day of the fatal crash, he had charged Mayor Randy Hodson of faking the theft of an expensive sports car in order to collect the insurance.

That now appears not to have been the case.

Hodson (above, right) was flying alone from Minneapolis (MN) to Duluth (MN) and was near Siren (WI) August 12th when his aircraft disappeared from radar. Sheriff Roland says, after talking with the FAA and Hodson's family and friends, he's determined that suicide wasn't an issue in the accident.

Instead, Roland said, Hodson, an experienced pilot and owner of an aviation-related company, had issued a distress call, saying the aircraft had started shaking violently. Roland said Hodson was "frantically" trying to get back to the airport in Siren when the plane went down. Further, radar evidence shows that Hodson had turned his Cessna in accordance with instructions from ATC, but then dropped from sight.

FMI: NTSB Preliminary Accident Report