16-year-old and 17-year-old suspects were arrested and charged over the death of photographer Victoria Schaffer in Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio.
Victoria had been taking photos of high school students when the 74lb log landed on her and killed her instantly, as she sat on a staircase at Old Man’s Cave.
According to the Hocking County Prosecutors Office, Investigators with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources discovered early on that the log was either thrown or pushed off the cliff.
Detectives received information about the involvement of two teens as authorities got a clue from a caller who said one of the teens sent a text message to a classmate stating he did something ‘serious’ at the park with the other teen who is now charged.
Hocking County prosecutor Benjamin Fickel told ABC6: ”Clearly [they] should have known better than to throw a 74-pound log off a cliff or to push it off a cliff. Whether there was any intention to hurt anyone I really don’t know, I can’t speak to that with the information that we have.”
Both the teenagers who are from Logan allegedly admitted to forcing a 74-pound log off a cliff. A spokeswoman for the Hocking Prosecutors Office said, ”At this time we’ve charged with reckless homicide so at this time we are operating under the assumption that was more reckless.”
”Reckless homicide requires that they be doing some act, either lawful or unlawful act that directly results in the death of someone else because the knew the risk they were taking and did it anyways.”
Victoria’s sister, Cathy Muth, told ABC 6: ”We understand that it maybe was an accident. But just knowing and be able to put that away would be helpful. We are not out for vengeance.”
”We just want to know what happened, and we want to prevent it from happening again.”
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