Couple's Bodies Found At Recycling Plants

Homeless Couple Apparently Went To Sleep In Paper Recycling Containers; Found 1,000 Miles Apart

(AP)  Two people whose bodies were found at paper recycling plants more than 1,000 miles apart were a homeless couple who apparently went to sleep in a recycling container before its contents were compacted, police said Tuesday.

Officials said there were no obvious signs of foul play.

One body was found last week at the Abitibi Consolidated plant in Snowflake, Ariz., about 175 miles northeast of Phoenix. It was positively identified Tuesday as Thomas Jansen, 53, a south St. Louis County man missing since late last month, authorities said.

The Navajo County, Ariz., sheriff's office told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that workers at the Snowflake plant found the body in a large container used to collect material rejected in the paper recycling process.

Using railroad documents, investigators determined that a large bale of material had been shipped to the Arizona plant from the St. Louis area. Jansen's body was identified from partial fingerprints and a description on an expired driver's license.

The body of Jansen's wife, Susan, 48, was found May 24 on a conveyor belt at a recycling center in north St. Louis.

Police believe both of the Jansens, who had recently become homeless, had gone to sleep in a recycling container in south St. Louis County in Missouri before the container's contents were emptied into a truck and compacted.

[erik2590]

Cooolll!!

[liondoctr]

This is so sad that in our country this we has so much poverty. Not all homeless people are "junkies" or alcoholics either. So many people live paycheck to paycheck and virtually are one paycheck away from disaster. So many celebrities are doing great charity work for foreign countries they need to refocus and help your own country. With taxes, insurance and cost of living rising faster then our salaries so many of us could be in the same boat.

[pghlady3]

lets send money to africa for nets, espically when there are soo many here that need help.

[glb1969]

what moron working for the company would empty such a container without checking it's contents? I hope they nail the reposnsible party for criminal negligence.

[crystalblue3]

This is so sad.

[aerodog]

erik2590

what's 'cooolll' about this? you @sswipe, these were 2 human beings down on their luck. "but by the grace of God goeth i" AND YOU TOO!!!

[russ1985]

Most Americans are only two paychecks away from being homeless so it's horrible that they died this way. erik2590, you have a lot of growing up to do. I'd suggest doing it sooner as opposed to later

[mitch0927]

erik2590,

You are a complete moron and must have parents that are the same.

[bogusbones]

We should never be shocked by these incidents. After all there are people making millions upon millions and they live in absolute luxury and who cares about the poor? I would think American leaders might have more empathy for their own citizens than trying to turn Iraq into an unwanted democracy. Let's see what a trillion dollars might do for us instead of them.

[rosesnpearls]

erik 2590, it's really cool till you're in your 60's and you get a phone call from across the country that your oldest son and his wife had been evicted from their home after he lost his mgmt job to downsizing and that their bodies had been found in a recycling machine because they had gotten into a container of boxes to keep warm so they could sleep. I bet you run redlights, too, since you don't care about human life.

[sassalin]

erik2590,

I really hope you are sterile!!! If not do the world a favor and take yourself out of it.

[luvny-2009]

This is AWFUL. We have OUR people losing their jobs every day to overseas and we have OUR kids going to bed hungry and we continue to spend MILLION on the dam fake war! We continue to allow big oil to screw everyone that owns a car, it's all BS! We need someone to turn this mess around. Bush & Co have created such a mess that we are now a train out of control. The rich are now filty rich and the average Joe's and the poor are just falling fast.

[patsy2007-2009]

erik2590

What is wrong with you....You must be in need of attetnion to be saying these type of things, or better yet you just want to start a chain of furious people replyng back to your *** comment. Go to school, scratch you a**, but stop these really low life ignorant comments, you discuss me!!!!

[lyfizgood]

It is very sad, how there are so many extremely rich, giving to needy outside of their own country. I was looking at Forbes, on the 400 richest men in the US. Just 100th of what the lowest on the list is worth could make a few people very comfortable for the rest of their lives.

And you are right, most of us living from paycheck to paycheck are just one step from disaster, and most of us have no way to put away for our old age, let alone make ends meet. What becomes of us then? More dead found somewhere?

[mmcminn3]

This is terrible. So, Bush is the reason for Katrina, Global Warming and now this. So when a liberal Dem wins, things will like this won't happen. But wait, it will still be Bush's fault! There a trillions of (Al Queda) things we can blame Clinton on, dang media sure is quiet.

[lyfizgood]

Billy,

I am for neither Reps or Dems. I am very disappointed in GW, but where have you been? We have had the needy as long as there has been a world. And there will probably always be the needy, sickness, death, disasters, wars, etc. Regardless of administration, they are here. One stroke of a pen, one glitch in the economy, one car accident, one terrorist, and we (you included) could be next. Has nothing to do with who is in the Whitehouse. It sickens me to see such comments, blaming one president or another. The problem is us as a whole. How to fix it? I do not have a clue.

[ceethomas]

mmcminn3

You're rambling, inarticulate, and make no sense. What in the world are you blubbering about?

[jimibear]

How is this news? The recycling solution to the homeless problem has been known for decades now:

"Soylent Green is people!"

Maybe we can start making them into lampshades and soap next! Or pet food?

(NOTE: The above is satire, for those of you too dumb or easily enflamed to get a joke. And ready as I always am to blame Bush for most things ... come ON. There have always been, and will always be, homeless people.)

[ceethomas]

lyfizgood

Quit lying about not being for dems or rep. Lockstep is written all over you. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or financial genius to figure out that the span between rich and poor has widened in the last six years. This administration has given it up to the wealthy i.e. big business. The shrub and his cronies ARE responsible for your so-called 'glitch.' It started with Iraq and snowballed from there. 09/11 was their ticket. Use your brain or have you been lying to yourself for so long you can't face the truth?

[jimibear]

I can't read any more of this ***. As some of you probably know, I despise Bush with an abiding passion. But not EVERYTHING that happens is his fault, and when you turn every discussion to a Bush-bashing session, all you do is make Bush's opponents look like a bunch of knee-jerk reactionary idiots, and make it easy for his defenders to minimize the many very legitimate complaints against him.

There have been homeless people as long as there have been people.

[samatha7]

Come on America give up a lot of the vacant properties rotting all over the country and put some homeless people in them so they do not end up in a recycling dump dead. Shame on America.

[coffeehead-2009]

But not EVERYTHING that happens is his fault, and when you turn every discussion to a Bush-bashing session,

THIS my friend IS BUSH MADE - via his NWO policies and his disinterest or disdain for the middle class americans ...

Sadly THIS is very common these days and yes - especially since this administrations blatant hate for working class america.


The alleged go-go economy created by George W. Bush and the GOP Congress is a slap in the face the former members of the middle class who hang at threads of their former middle class lifestyle by sleeping in their cars on the quiet suburban streets of the neighborhood where they once owned a home.

The New York Times writes: "Last year, William R. Alford started keeping a car cover over the station wagon where he sleeps. "I originally just had drapes, but the condensation on the inside of the windows was a dead giveaway," said Mr. Alford, who has been homeless here in the affluent Fairfax County, Virginia since May 2005."

The New York Times,"In 2001, officials in Lynnwood, Wash., a suburb of Seattle, passed an ordinance imposing penalties of 90 days in jail or fines of up to $1,000 against people caught living in their cars."

Peter Van Giesen, a code enforcement officer for the town, said that up to 20 cars a night were found with people parking near a park where there were complaints of people using the bushes as a restroom.

"Most of these people were trying to find work," Mr. Van Giesen said.

[coffeehead-2009]

Middle Class and Homeless -- Unlikely Families Face Foreclosure

Chicago Defender, News Report, Zondra Hughes, Posted: May 21, 2007

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=1b33a9ec66b96536d3a1e0ebddda875d



"Capital must protect itself in every way...Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd."

-- Taken from the Civil Servants' Year Book, "The Organizer" January 1934

[cburn665]

like someone said earlier, this could happen to anyone of us.

This is sad but, at least their misery of trying to survive is over and I don't mean that in some uncaring Kervorkian way.

Seriously, if you have nothing going and no one to help you to lift yourself up and livin' in the gutter then you're probably better off dead.

[johnpatrick9]

Aren't we supposed to care for one another and not dismiss the weak as deserving of their fate. Judge a nation by how it cares for its lesser members and how it attempts to save/rehabilitate/help them when wounded by circumstances. So many relish is their indifference and secretly enjoy the feeling of material superiority over those whose circumstances we can only guess at. Sad happening in a nation that calls itself "CHRISTIAN" and oh yes.."Number One."

[coffeehead-2009]

What is REALLY sad is that while the newfound homeless sneak into beach restrooms, gas stations and retail stores to clean up before working at day labor or getting back on their feet - they STILL pay the taxes to support the very people who have destroyed us.

Corporate welfare -
subsidies to these corps TO TAKE OUR JOBS OFFSHORE. Subsidies to bail out their poor management skills and subsidies in fraudulent "no-bid" contracts.
THEN - we pay for health care, education and housing for the "new immigrants" (about 1.50 cents for every dollar they earn) - so the very "screw american" companies can bleed MORE profit from our replacements.

[ubrew12]

"How to fix it [the needy]? I do not have a clue."
Posted by lyfizgood at 01:49 PM : Jun 13, 2007

Well, then, catch a clue. FDR fixed it, after Hoover caused it. Bush is Hoover for the 21st Century. This problem will get alot worse before it gets better.

[coffeehead-2009]

ubrew12
funny you said that -- coolidge also..
does this sound deja-vu?


Main Causes of the Great Depression

As production costs fell quickly, wages rose slowly, and prices remained constant, the bulk benefit of the increased productivity went into corporate profits. In fact, from 1923-1929 corporate profits rose 62% and dividends rose 65%10.

The federal government also contributed to the growing gap between the rich and middle-class. Calvin Coolidge's administration (and the conservative-controlled government) favored business, and as a result the wealthy who invested in these businesses. An example of legislation to this purpose is the Revenue Act of 1926, signed by President Coolidge on February 26, 1926, which reduced federal income and inheritance taxes dramatically11. Andrew Mellon, Coolidge's Secretary of the Treasury, was the main force behind these and other tax cuts throughout the 1920's. In effect, he was able to lower federal taxes such that a man with a million-dollar annual income had his federal taxes reduced from $600,000 to $200,00012. Even the Supreme Court played a role in expanding the gap between the socioeconomic classes. In the 1923 case Adkins v. Children's Hospital, the Supreme Court ruled minimum-wage legislation unconstitutional13.

The large and growing disparity of wealth between the well-to-do and the middle-income citizens made the U.S. economy unstable.

[padams1010]

I have made this suggestion before ... but here it goes again. Why doesn't he government take the military bases it closes and turn the bases into homeless shelters and rehabilitation centers. Teach the families/people that come to live on the base jobs that help keep the base running ... give each family a time span for how long they can stay on base, learn a trade, and then move on. Do you have any idea HOW many trades/jobs there are on a military base ... jobs that a portable anywhere in the USA. Think about it ... kill two birds with one stone. House the homeless but teach them how to take care and run the base ... give them skills they can take out in the world. I'm telling you ... it could be done!!

[grammawhamma]

Tell me...is there any story that you so called people do not turn into a political debate!!?? Padams1010 your idea sounds worth a try. :)

[infidel_us]

The parents of the bride said, "it won't last." This is obviously Bush/Chaney/Halliburtin/heartless republican's problem. If Obama were president, we'd all be livin in da land of strawberry soda!

[jsilver2th]

infidel_us: "livin in da land of strawberry soda" ????

You're skin head bashing biggot or the mail quit coming to your trailer park and you couldn't finish your mail order GED?

[ceethomas]

GrammaWhamma

This story is about a "recent" homeless couple. It most DEFINITELY spurs political debate. Why wouldn't it? Or are you so comfortably placed in your rocking chair you don't care about other people and how the actions of this government have affected so many people's lives? Where's all those so-called christian organizations that get money from the shrub's government to help people in need? Oh wait, maybe that money is being used to spread more of their pathetic and filthy doctrine.

[ubrew12]

"The federal government also contributed to the growing gap between the rich and middle-class." Posted by coffeehead at 02:50 PM : Jun 13, 2007
I guess I meant all those anti-tax administrations leading up to the Depression.

"If Obama were president, we'd all be livin in da land of strawberry soda!"Posted by infidel_us at 03:59 PM : Jun 13, 2007
Thirty years of supply-side economics won't be overturned by Obama alone, or anytime soon. But, true, hard to say exactly what caused this homelessness.

[mmcminn3]

Inarticulate as the truth may be, Democracy can not prevail in a Muslim dominated country, but we still can run. The next president will also realize the mistakes of Clinton as well as both Bush 1 and 2 in not making a dent in Al Queda has cost us dearly (forever). They have a plan to Nuke 7 U.S. cities at the same time, go ahead blame Bush. We have to fight them till the bitter end, regardless of the cost. The truth hurts, but it will come quicker if we run and bury our head in the sand of the great USA.

[coffeehead-2009]

Tell me...is there any story that you so called people do not turn into a political debate!!?? Padams1010 your idea sounds worth a try. :)

You don't think homelessness is a political issue? I find it amusing that folks who have no conception of others situation. And as far as farming our homeless into "trade" peons? What is that? Many of these people deserve better from you all. They have already worked their way out of the mill house - these "shelters" are horrid and full of disease - degrading and humiliating. Isolation and even considering that our current system "train" these people is scary - I sure hope too many other citizens agree with this. The thought so reminds me of putrid - housing and handling of GOOD people for bad reasons. We don't need "trades" - low paying , government trained minions. We need independent careers and honorable pride building encouragement.

Find the FEMA Concentration Camp Near You!

updated 8-23-06

http://www.greatdreams.com/concentration-camp-locations.htm

[grammawhamma]

ceethomas. Do you vote in every election?? Do you get off your computer chair and volunteer your time to help those less fortunate then you?? Do you donate to local food pantries that feed the homeless?? I hope your answer is yes to all of the above.

[mmcminn3]

Grandma, I think he does vote. Putting more liberals in charge of the schools, that move the kids through like cattle so they don't have to re"teach" them next year and then wonder why they can't hold down a job. The public schools and the NEA keep saying "throw us more money" and the result is no discipline and complete waste. Japan is laughing at us on that one.

[ceethomas]

mmcminn3

HUH? Who is "they" doing the nuking?

Fight them till the bitter end? Who is "them?"

What "truth" hurts?

Are you hiding in a bunker, living in the woods, or what?

[mmcminn3]

1 billion Muslims and 1 percent are willing to give their life to the cause. That equals, ok I will do the math, 1 million. I may not be PC but am wise. You don't have to listen or think about it. You could just click the X.

[padams1010]

coffeehead ...

Wow ... "farming our homeless into "trade" peons" ... "We don't need "trades" - low paying , government trained minions." ... "Many of these people deserve better from you all." YOUR remarks to my suggestions for HELPING the homeless GET BACK ON THEIR FEET!! Teaching them a trade (a.k.a. JOB)they can TAKE OUT (on their own two feet) of the shelter into the working world. You think "these people" deserve better from "all of you"? What's better than an honest days work for an honest days pay?? Go ahead, pinhead ... what's your solution? Soup kitchens under the a bridge somewhere ... or better yet ... sleeping quarters in the recycle bin!!

[ceethomas]

GrammaWhamma

Yes to all and even MORE than you can imagine. And that is why I see clearly what has happened to my country in the past six years. Do YOU work all day, as well as the local food bank, volunteering at the polls, helping out at your local schools, nonprofit organizations, etc.?

[grammawhamma]

ceethomas. I am glad to hear that you do your part and more. What angers me are those people that whine about everything but do nothing actively to change the situation. The world needs more "doers". Yes, I do my part where and when I can.

[jodaja1983]

my wife and i live paycheck to paycheck. we cant both work because daycare would take most of my wifes check. we had to figure out a budget that works for us and work hard on a daily basis. we live on $12.75 an hour have 2 dependable vehicles, a small but nice home. Pay for medical ins through my employer and buy our own groceries. I just dont understand why all these people are living off of american tax dollars and not having to get out there and get a job. why should we have to pay for there free money, and why should the government be blaimed because their aren't jobs out there. WE DIDNT GET OUR FREEDOM FROM THE GOVERNMENT, OUR FOUR FATHERS FOUGHT FOR IT, and so should we. the government should be relied on to keep order. i pray every day that all this countryies b/s and pointing the fingure doesnt lead my grandkids into a communist country and the government telling them how to spend their money because their parents depended on them for groceries, diapers, and dr bills

[noview1]

Actually mmcminn3 it's 10 Million. Even worse.

[taylpatr]

To jodaja1983-It is a real struggle for many of us out here.More people are living from paycheck to paycheck and are one months pay from being put out in the street.The reason the government is responsible and people can't just "get out and get a job" is that the capitalists that run ouir economy have made it profitable, and it's become an accepted practice, to "outsource" jobs to other countries.As long as our government gives these corporations huge tax breaks and still permits them to be headquartered in the U.S., they will go for the profit, no matter the cost to American families.Kimberley-Clark shut down two plants last year, one in Utah and another in Idaho. Both of these plants assembled stomache tubes to be used for surgery.Now, the stomache tubes are made in Mexico, in a village with no flush toilets.But they left the Huggies plant in Ogden, Utah. As long as these capitalist
pigs are allowed to screw their fellow Americans and keep putting people on the street, we're going to see more and more of these un-nessecary evils.Boycott Kimberley-Clark and as many of these corporations as you can. The only thing that gets their attention is money, or the loss of it.

[gmond]

eww