http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...S0103/804100390Death wrapped in mystery
BY SCOTT WARTMAN | SWARTMAN@NKY.COM
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MELBOURNE - Darlene Biddle last saw her husband of 17 years waving goodbye as she drove to work along Ky. 8 in Silver Grove at 7:30 a.m. last Thursday.
About 3 p.m., a worker at a landfill in Butler spotted John F. Biddle's lifeless body being dumped by a garbage truck.
The question of what happened to John Biddle, 48, that day gnaws at his family.
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Visibly tired, Darlene Biddle sat looking out the window of her Melbourne home Wednesday wondering who might have seen her husband last Thursday and who could solve the mystery plaguing their family.
Biddle's 9-month-old granddaughter, Holly, wriggled in her lap, alternately crying and laughing. A crumpled bag of clothes her husband wore the day he died lay in the kitchen. The blue jeans were torn in the crotch but his jacket and shirt seemed intact. His watch was unblemished and ticking.
"I could accept it more if he was killed in a car wreck or something," Biddle said. "Leaving us like this, not knowing, is awful."
Kentucky State Police investigators say they don't suspect foul play.
John Biddle was alive when he went into the garbage truck, because his only injuries indicate he was crushed by the truck's trash compactor, said Kentucky State Police Detective Chris Jaskowiak. He suffered a broken back and multiple other broken bones, Jaskowiak said.
The state police await a toxicology report to determine what was in his system before a final autopsy report is made, Jaskowiak said.
The police and family want to hear from anybody who may have seen him last Thursday.
"I don't have any evidence at this point to show he met with foul play," Jaskowiak said. "We are waiting toxicology and looking for witnesses."
His family doesn't believe he got into the Dumpster on his own.
John Biddle occasionally would go on one- or two-night drinking benders, but never got into trouble, his family said.
On those occasions, he would stay at a home his family owns on Ky. 8 in Melbourne near Silver Grove, Biddle said. It was near that home on Ky. 8 where she last saw her husband as she drove to work.
The family said the 250-pound John Biddle was incapable of climbing into the Dumpster himself.
"We know strongly there is no way John could get into that Dumpster himself," said his sister-in-law Dixie Neace. "He had no reason to get in the Dumpster. He always knew where home was."
The night before his death, John Biddle was drinking at Pelle's Café in Silver Grove. That was the first time he had gone drinking in nine months, his wife said.
He left Pelle's Café about midnight Wednesday, said co-owner Bob Pelle. He said something about going across the railroad tracks, Pelle said.
"When he left the place, I don't know what happened," Pelle said.
Pelle said John Biddle would come in the tavern occasionally, but he hadn't been in for several months before Wednesday.
Pelle said he took garbage to the Dumpster outside his café about 10 a.m. Thursday and saw no one inside.
The family and police don't know which Dumpster contained John Biddle when the garbage truck picked him up. The family has received some anonymous calls from people claiming some theories, but nothing substantial.
"We don't know what to believe," his wife said. "Nothing makes sense. We just want some kind of closure."
His family theorizes he may have been in the Dumpster outside a Melbourne convenience store.
John Biddle had purchased a pack of cigarettes just before his death, his wife said. The pack he had on him when his body was found had only two cigarettes missing.
His ubiquitous baseball cap was nowhere to be found, she said. But no eyewitnesses have come forward with credible information, she added.
"Melbourne and Silver Grove is such a tight-knit community, no one wants to get involved," Biddle said.
Biddle learned her husband died when a state trooper came up her driveway last Thursday. For the past week, she said, she has been barely able to function.
She has three children. None were John Biddle's biological children, but he raised them as his own for the past 17 years, Biddle said.
His children described him as a jokester and a doting father. When his newest granddaughter, Holly, was being born, he nervously paced the hospital, Biddle said.
"We were close, me and him," said his stepdaughter Jessica Wilson, 27, of Alexandria. "I loved him. We will find out sooner or later what happened."
Police ask anyone with any information regarding John Biddle's death or his whereabouts on April 3 to call state police at 859-428-1212.