SPRING VALLEY, Minn. – A Wykoff woman was killed when she drove through a T-bone intersection after dark on a rural road north of Spring Valley. Fillmore County deputies identified the victim as Jessica Nicole Aspenwall, 27. She was only a few miles from home The accident was about 9:30 p.m. at County Road 4 and County Road 38. Aspenwall was driving a pickup truck west on County Road 4, deputies said.

FOUNTAIN, Minn.  – An Iowa driver was injured when he lost control of his pickup truck on U.S. Highway 52 north of Fountain and went into the ditch. Dean Jude Drew, 81, of Guttenberg, was taken 30 miles to a Rochester hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The accident was on wet pavement near Jasmine Road about about 11:30 a.m. Drew was heading south toward Preston in a 2010 Ford F250.

ELBA, Minn. – A caller reported a Facebook post that a body was hanging from the top of the 100-foot lookout tower on a bluff over Elba. Winona County deputies climbed the tower. They found a blanket arranged to look like a body on a railing. They took down the blanket.

Tourist attraction. The tower was built in 1932 to watch for wildfires in the Whitewater River valley.  In recent years it has been a tourist attraction. Access is by 632 narrow wooden steps to the tower’s base, then an additional 100-footc limb up to the lookout platform.

MINNEISKA, Minn. – Emergency responders spent the night looking in the dark for a woman who died either falling or jumping from a cliff at Latsch State Park. The drop was 100 feet. The woman’s  name was not released immediately pending notification of family. In Winona at the time of the 8:45 a.m. daily police news briefing, sheriff’s investigator Mark Dungy said reports from the field were that crews were still trying to retrieve the body. The Winona police dispatcher had taken a call about 7:45 p.m. from another jurisdiction to check on a report that a possibly suicidal woman might be at the park. Apparently the deputies found her car at the trailhead off U.S. Highway 61. They headed up trails, this in a pitch-black cold, windy and drizzly night — three hours after sundown at the winter solstice. The park, which has no electricity, is posted as open only during daylight. At dawn rescue teams were on-site from Winona, Rolllingstone and other agencies.

John Latsch Park

The park is 15 miles north on the Mississippi River from Winona. The 650-acre park offers spectacular panoramas to hikers who scale rough trails to the top. There are only the trails, no roads. Three buffs — Mount Faith, Mount Hope, and Mount Charity – are 500 feet the valley floor. The park is administered by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. It is unstaffed.

DNR promotional photos. Three bluff-top peaks each offer breath-taking views to those who make the 500-foot vertical ascent. Stairs help in places. The park is unstaffed. Administration is out of Whitewater State Park 15 miles away in Elba. Hours are 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Day use only. No camping.

Awaiting Santa’s visit. Don’t be fooled. This is a printed blanket-size photograph in an office cubicle: No real fireplace. No real fire. But the stockings are real. So too the warm wishes of the season. Co-workers will be looking the morning after for treats and stocking-stuffers from Santa. Image: Steve Lunde

Earlier: Holiday gallery / 2

WABASHA, Minn. – A Wabasha woman was charged with embezzling $3.7 million from a Lewiston company, National Chemicals, for which she was a bookkeeper who worked from home. The company has filed for bankruptcy, which has been blamed on the embezzlement, according to the criminal complaint against Sharon Ann Schmalzriedt, 61. The complaint, in Wabasha County court, alleges that Schmalzriedt stole the money over 30 months ending in March this year when she was fired. When bookkeeping problems were suspected by the owner of National Chemicals, Murl Landman, he brought in outside experts to check on unexpected losses, financial inconsistencies, and payments to unaffiliated organizations.

Secondary theft charged

The complaint says Schmalzriedt separately stole $17,000 from a vulnerable adult in her care.

Why? “Online love”

Investigators said that Schmalzriedt told them that the embezzled funds were sent to a man she never met but with whom she had an online relationship. This guy, Eric Lockwood he called himself, claimed he needed money to get access to $7 million for work he did in Dubai, Schmalzriedt said. First, she said, she burned through her own money, then turned to “borrowing” secretly from her employer, National Chemicals, 35 miles away in Lewiston. She said this Lockwood promised to repay her back so she could restore the missing funds. Investigators called it a scam.

Schmalzriedt. Says an online relationship that led her to embezzle.

National Chemicals. In Lewiston at 135 Rice Street off U.S. Highway 14.

National Chemicals profile

The company was founded in 1947 in Winona as a packager of chemical products for beverage and food production. Its plant was at 108 Liberty Street across from the Polish Museum. In 2011, needing more space, the company doubled its capacity by purchasing a former Herff Jones school yearbook-publishing plant in Lewiston.  The business expanded with the growth of  micro-breweries, home wine-making,  and coffee shops, all of which need antimicrobial sanitizing products of the custom-mixed sort in which  National Chemicals specializes. The company has been family-owned for three generations.

Smoke visible for miles. Northeast of Mondovi on State Highway 37. Image: Buffalo County sheriff

Farm workers all safe; no animals lost

MONDOVI, Wis.  – Fire destroyed a farm shed apparently starting in one of five fully fueled manure trucks inside. No one was injured. No animals were in the structure. The fire started about 11:30 a.m. The cause was not determined immediately. Neighbors reported hearing an explosion. The building was fully engulfed and the roof collapsed when firefighters arrived. The fire, at the Heike place at South 77 Highway 37, also destroyed several baled hay and corn stalks.

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 39 emergency medical calls plus 10 fire calls in recent days:

> Tuesday, December 19: 6 medical calls plus no fire calls

> Monday, December 18: 6 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Sunday, December 17: 3 medical calls plus no fire calls.

> Saturday, December 16: 6 medical calls plus no fire calls.

> Friday, December 15: 10 medical calls plus 2 calls.

> Thursday, December 14: 5 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Wednesday, December 13: 3 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews 43 calls

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona man, apparently looking for a warm place to sleep, was found inside Memorial Hall at Winona State University about dawn. Patrick John Price, 63, was issued a citation for trespass. Overnight temperatures were in the 20s. Price had been barred from campus since March on a don’t-come-back order.

Basketball (men): Michigan Tech 73, Winona State 72

Basketball (women): Winona State 59, Michigan Tech 56

WINONA, Minn. – The Walmart retail store reported a customer wheeled $700 in cleaning supplies and personal goods through a self-checkout lane and drove off. The store said the woman paid for some items with a bank card, which left financial clues to her identity. Also: A surveillance camera caught her car license plate in the parking lot. A summons would be mailed the woman’s address in Lancaster, California, police said. Taken but not scanned, said Walmart, were two jackets valued at $60; an electronic razor, $35; an electric toothbrush, $70; numerous containers of laundry soap, $11 each; and razors, $12 to $18.

TUCSON, Ariz. – A grand jury indicted a fellow prison inmate of disgraced Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of stabbing him. The indictment of John Turscak, 52, lists attempted murder, assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. Chauvin was stabbed 22 times in the Tucson federal penitentiary law library with an improvised knife. Chauvin spent several days recovering in a Tucson hospital.

Earlier: Chauvin back in prison to mend from stabbing

Earlier: Chauvin’s prison assailant charged: Attempted murder

Earlier: Ellison: Derek Chauvin expected to survive

Earlier: Chauvin’s attorney on stabbing: “I told you”

Earlier: Warden remans mum on Chauvin’s survival prospects

Earlier: Attorney general on Chauvin stabbing: “Sad”

Earlier: Ex-Minneapolis cop Chauvin stabbed at Arizona prison

WINONA, Minn. – Bail was set at $50,000 for a woman arrested last week in a cocaine and firearm bust. Tanya Sherrice McCain, age 49, posted the bail and was released pending further court proceedings. Bail was set by Judge Nancy Buytendrop. The criminal complaint says police found 620 grams of cocaine, valued at $60,000, in a dresser d rawer in her bedroom — as well as $8,000 cash. At booking a jailer found an additional $1,000 in her purse. The cocaine seized at the apartment was packaged in zip-lock bags inside a larger plastic bag, according to the complaint. A subsequent search of the apartment found an additional 13 grams of cocaine in 13 different zip-lock bags, the complaint said. Also found was a gun that McCain admitted to police that she brandished at an East End bar a few days earlier. The criminal complaint, however, doesn’t mention the bar incident. The bar’s security video doesn’t make clear whether McCain was the perpetrator in the bar incident or a victim defending herself.

Earlier: 620 grams cocaine found in Winona apartment

Earlier: Tipster: Woman pulled gun in bar disturbance

Cold, cold dip. Pilot and passenger, uninjured,  wade to shore after plane breaks through ice. Image: Beltrami County sheriff

Snow concealed muck; Planes sashays onto lake ice

UPPER RED LAKE, Minn. – The pilot of a light airplane misjudged the slipperiness of a snow-covered landing zone at Upper Red Lake and skidded onto ice on the lake and broke through. The pilott and a lone passenger climbed out and waded to shore in icy waist-deep water. They made it to at a nearby resort for hot coffee and warm clothes. Preparations were made to recover the single-engine high-wing Cessna 172 Sky Hawk. The two were on a 100-mile flight from  Grand Rapids  to Upper Red Lake, which is north of Bemidji. The accident about 9:15 a.m.

Earlier: Experts: Waterways not yet ready for ice-fishing

Earlier: 35 stranded on Upper Red Lake when ice breaks

LEWISTON, Minn. — More snowmobile trail markers have been reported stolen north of Lewiston, these along County Road 110 up to the junction with County Road 25, the main Lewiston-Rollingstone route. Another theft was reported last week. Jeff Mueller, chief deputy sheriff, said investigators have firm leads.

Earlier: Pre-season thievery: Snowmobile signs gone

An oversize but quiet testament. To the joys of the season on U.S. Highway14 at the Arches. Image: Steve Lunde

Earlier: Holiday gallery / 1