Young couple dies in Neb snowstorm despite call 911 5x
PAPILLION, Neb. Jan 21, 2005 — A young couple lost in rural Nebraska died in a snowstorm despite calling 911 at least five times from a cell phone.
Details of how Michael Wamsley and Janelle Hornickel died Jan. 5 and the police search for them were to be discussed by law enforcement officers on Friday.
Copies of the 911 tapes were being prepared, as well as a timeline of events, maps and a videotape of the area that was made during the search, Sarpy County Chief Deputy Sheriff Jeff Davis said.
Toxicology and autopsy results also will be made public, Davis said.
Hornickel was a junior at Creighton University in Omaha. She and Wamsley had dated about a year, and most recently they had worked at the same telemarketing company.
Police were investigating why the couple were out on rural roads just southwest of Omaha in the middle of a heavy snow.
Police had received telephone calls from the couple from about 2 a.m. CST until 4:56 a.m. the day they died. The calls, however, had bounced off different cellular telephone towers, making it impossible to accurately trace their whereabouts.
Wamsley's snow-covered body was found Jan. 6, and Hornickel's was found six days later at the edge of a sand pit lake. Both were within two miles of the truck.
On the evening before they died, Wamsley and Hornickel, both 20, had been stopped by police for traffic violations in Geneva, about 100 miles west of Omaha. The couple, both from Ord in central Nebraska, said they were lost, and the officer pointed the right way to Omaha.
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