Man uses Tow Truck, cable to kill self
A 54-year-old employee of a Pontiac car repair shop apparently decapitated himself early Thursday using a cable and the thrust of his Tow Truck.
Authorities in Livingston County released few details of the death and declined to identify the man pending notification of relatives. The man’s employer called the death outside the shop a suicide.
The man, who had worked at S&R Route 66 Auto Center on the western edge of Pontiac for about four years, appears to have tied a cable to a sign in front of the business and the other end around his neck.
Then, at about 4:30 a.m., he got inside his Tow Truck and popped the clutch.
Jeff Semmens, the owner of S&R, said the man usually kept the Tow Truck at his house, but had been sick the last few days and left it at the shop.
“He was a pretty good guy,” Semmens said. “It really freaks me out — I can’t think of why he’d want to do this.”
Semmens had not arrived at the shop by the time police had already found the decapitated body. He said he usually gets to work around 5 a.m.
A bystander in the area called 911 at 4:27 a.m. to report a Tow Truck driving erratically through the S&R and neighboring parking lots along a commercial area off Illinois 116 near its junction with old Route 66.
The truck careened through the S&R parking lot and adjacent Superior Gyros parking lot eastward, then struck a sign and crossed old Route 66. It went down an embankment and came to rest behind a business on the other side of the road.
When police arrived, they found the man’s head in the S&R parking lot and his body inside the truck.