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- [S84] E-Mail, David Lomax [sonofabricklayer@yahoo.com], 16 Jul 2007.
- [S1] U. S. Social Security Death Index, 492-40-3132.
Issued in Missouri
- [S142] Newspaper Article, Penthouse, Page 186, Nov 1981.
"At about 1:30 p.m. that day, Menge decided to mow a field of grass adjacent to his bankrupt estate in Forest, Va., a suburb of Lynchburg. The reason, it is said, was that he planned to take his children to a picnic there, although people in Lynchburg remember that his children did not appear to have been home. Further, it was snake-and-chigger season in Virginia, and Menge possessed a perfectly adequate swimming pool and picnic area much closer to his house.
"His blood was later found to contain an alcoholic content of .02 percent, not unusual in itself except that Menge was not a drinking man and was not in the habit of keeping alcohol around the house.
"The instrument he chose for the task was a rotary mower called a bush hog. A wicked piece of machinery, it is towed along behind the tractor and is powered by its drive shaft. As Menge drove around the field, according to the official report, one or more of the wheels of the tractor and a blade of the bush hog are supposed to have struck some old utility poles concealed in the grass, causing Menge to bounce into the air. As he did so, the spring that supported the tractor seat is supposed to have fallen out. Menge is then supposed to have fallen back onto the springless seat and tumbled over backward without getting his feet tangled in the pedals or steering wheel, which he is also supposed to have stopped holding. Menge is then supposed to have fallen to the earth, where the bush hog ran over him, severing his left hand and right forearm, shattering and virtually severing his right leg, and fracturing his skull.
"People fall under bush hogs with depressing frequency - like many farm implements, they are not things to fool around with - but Menge's death is an unquiet one. When the tractor was found, stalled in the field, it was in high gear. A tractor in high gear will not cut a field very well, and there are many fields a tractor in high gear cannot cut at all.
"This is not to say that Menge was murdered, but there are enough unanswered questions and curious circumstances to render the official version of his death very nearly inoperable. For reasons that have never been explained, two FBI agents briefly investigated the Menge death, although there was no discernible federal jurisdiction. The FBI refuses to discuss why the agents were there."
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1943 - 1980 (37 years)
, d. Jun 1982 (Age 64 years)