Death ruled suicide

Coroner Erik Mitchell’s office has determined the man found dead last week by the side of the road in northern Lawrence died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A passer-by found the 30-year-old Lawrence man, identified in a police report as Jason McGaugh, the morning of Dec. 14 by a fence on the east side of the road at Second and Arkansas streets.

Police responded to the scene but did not release the cause of death at the time.

Emergency

Item left on stove led to fire, officials say

A fire that damaged a south Lawrence house Tuesday was started by something combustible left on a stove, according to Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical investigators.

What became a two-alarm fire broke out in a one-story house at 1124 W. 27th St. and caused an estimated $175,000 to $200,000 damage, Deputy Chief Mark Bradford said.

The occupants of the house, John and Marie Gibbon, had just moved in a few weeks ago. They were not home when the fire started. In addition to the damage, an Amazon parrot and several other birds in the house died in the blaze.

Politics

Lawrence couple to visit Ukraine

Robert Rodriguez, a doctoral student at Kansas University, and his wife, Irina, will be in Ukraine next week.

“We should arrive in Kiev at noon on Monday,” Rodriguez said. The couple’s arrival is expected to coincide with the announcement of Sunday’s election results.

“We don’t know what to expect,” he said. “I guess it’ll depend on who wins.”

Last month, the Ukrainian parliament and supreme court rejected the results of the presidential election amid widespread allegations of fraud.

Rodriguez said he would make himself available to the Journal-World for a firsthand account of Ukrainian reaction to the election.

Irina Rodriguez is from Ukraine. Plans call for the couple to spend most of their time visiting relatives in the city of Kharkov.