EATON TWP. — Firefighters from at least five departments responded this morning to a large garage fire on Butternut Ridge Road, and Butternut Ridge Road was closed all morning as they battled the blaze.

The fire was a large outbuilding behind Tom Jorgensen’s home on Butternut Ridge, about a half mile east of Durkee Road.

Jorgensen said he was at work when the fire started about 6 a.m.

A neighbor noticed the fire after his dog started barking, and the neighbor woke up Jorgenson’s wife, he said.

According to Jorgensen, the building contained “all kinds of things,” including a lot of wood, motorcycles, go-carts and tractors.

He said he didn’t know what would have started the fire, but that it seemed to have started in the northeast corner closest to the home and that he did have propane tanks in the building.

Firefighters from Eaton Township, Carlisle Township, Grafton Township, Columbia Township and the village of Grafton remained on the scene at 9 a.m.

Photos by Rona Proudfoot, CT Web editor. Purchase a print.

A LISA Alert when out today concerning the attempted abduction Friday morning of a 16-year-old Lorain girl.

The girl, whose name wasn’t released, was approached by a man in his 40s driving a pickup truck outside Rebman Recreation at 5295 Oberlin Ave., police said.

The teenager was trying to cross the street at 10:32 a.m. Friday when the man stopped his truck and tried to get the girl to go with him, police said.

When that failed, he got out of his truck and walked toward her until she fled.

The victim described the man as white, in his 40s, around 200 pounds, wearing a brown stocking cap and matching brown jacket with a full beard.

The truck was described as an older red truck with a matching cap over the bed. The cap has side windows and the truck might have had an extended cab.

CLEVELAND — A newspaper says a county judge sent its staff e-mails expressing opinions about the Ohio case of a suspected serial killer that he was later appointed to oversee.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty stepped down from the Anthony Sowell case Thursday. Editor Susan Goldberg of The Plain Dealer says the judge sent e-mails marked “off the record” that created “an impossible ethical position.”

McGinty cites a conflict of interest due to his efforts to change criminal justice practices.

McGinty has criticized police for releasing suspects pending indictment. Sowell was arrested and released without charges in 2008 after a woman alleged he attacked her. The remains of 11 women were found at his home this fall.

Goldberg says there was no agreement that the e-mails would be off the record. A message seeking comment was left at McGinty’s office Friday morning.

Sowell has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Two Medina County teenagers were badly hurt in a one-car accident overnight in Brunswick Hills Township.
Alyssa Lee, 16, of Medina and Ryan Suvak, 16, of Brunswick are both at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland with life-threatening injuries. Lee has brain injuries and is on a respirator, and Suvak has a partially collapsed lung and other […]