Dead Man

An ultralight aircraft with one person on board crashed at Smoketown Airport in Lancaster County about 5:45 p.m. Saturday, Federal Aviation Administration officials said. The county coroner's office identified the dead man as 30-year-old Michael Blank, but information on his hometown was not available. The Lancaster Intelligencer Journal reported Saturday night that the crash occurred shortly after takeoff. The cause of the crash was as yet unknown, pending an investigation at the scene.

Tow worker yesterday prepares to remove burned-out car from Annsbury Street, near Fairhill, in Feltonville, where firefighters found the charred body of a man. The victim was described as between 30 and 40 years old.

Dead Man isn't deadpan. The least ironic of Jim Jarmusch's movies is a spacey, psychedelic western (black and white, courtesy of the great cinematographer Robby Muller) in which a Cleveland accountant boards a train, ventures west and winds up in the company of a profane Blood-and-Blackfoot Indian - the two of them embarking on a symbol-laden spiritual journey, pursued by lawmen, bounty hunters and a gunslinging cannibal. The accountant, who wears a bow tie, a bowler, and a fancy plaid suit when he detrains in the wild, woolly town of Machine, is named William Blake, and the Native American - whose name is Nobody - believes this young man to be the visionary English poet and artist.

Hatfield police were trying to confirm the identity of a man who was hit and killed Friday night as he walked across Route 309. Officer Robert Turner, who is in charge of the investigation, said he hadn't been able to locate the man's next of kin. The man, believed to be homeless and in his 60s, was wearing dark clothes when he tried to cross the highway near Janes Lane about 9:40 p.m., police said. He was hit by a southbound 1984 Oldsmobile driven by Laurie Abrams, 27, of White Plains, N.Y. Police said Abrams attempted to avoid the man by swerving to the left, but didn't see him in time to avoid hitting him. The man was thrown 35 feet into the air after impact.

A dead man can run for political office. Montgomery County Court Judge Richard S. Lowe ruled yesterday that Republican voters in Upper Providence Township deserve the right to choose Tuesday between two candidates for supervisor - one living, one dead. Lowe ordered that the name of J. Robert Kershner, who died May 5 of a heart attack, stay on the GOP primary ballot. Lowe refused to heed arguments by a lawyer for Howard P. Huber Jr., Kershner's opponent for the nomination, that Kershner's name be covered on the town's eight voting machines.

"Dead Man Out" (10 p.m Sunday on HBO) puts your head in a box and squeezes it hard. What can you expect, after all, from a movie in which 80 percent of the action takes place on death row? Tension city, as your president would no doubt say. Your senses may feel constricted, but your mind will be loosened up by this story of Alex Marsh (Danny Glover), a prison psychiatrist charged with making quadruple-murderer Ben (Ruben Blades) "mentally competent" enough for the state to put him to death.

For five days, a Northeast Philadelphia man lay dead on the floor of his snowbound car, parked on busy Castor Avenue directly in front of Woodrow Wilson Middle School. A curious cop finally noticed the body yesterday. Milorad Aranicky, 67, a frail man with a history of heart disease and emphysema, died of natural causes days ago, authorities said. While his wife thought he was away in the mountains with a friend, his body lay crumpled on the front floor of his brown 1984 Dodge 600, authorities said.

Philadelphia police yesterday found the bullet-riddled body of a 21-year-old man who was sitting inside a car parked in the driveway of a home in West Philadelphia. Sgt. William Gallagher identified the man as Raheem Ellis and said he lived near 1400 N. 56th St., where his body was found around 2 a.m. Police were called after receiving a report of shots being fired. Ellis was shot multiple times with a 9mm handgun, police said. He was pronounced dead at Hahnemann University Hospital.

Philadelphia police are investigating the death of a man whose body was discovered early this morning behind a North Philadelphia shopping center. The man, who has not been identified, was found in the predawn hours in a wooded area off Adams Avenue, in the city's Frankford section. He appeared to have been shot, and police said it also appears he was dressed as a woman. Contact staff writer Allison Steele at 215-854-2641 or asteele@phillynews.com .

Police were investigating the death of a man whose body was found yesterday afternoon next to his smashed-up car about 25 feet under a River Road overpass. Investigators found a wallet at the scene but had not positively identified the man last night. Police described him as a white male about 40 years old. Montgomery County Coroner Halbert E. Fillinger Jr. said he had been tentatively identified as a man from the Norristown area. Police said a young man riding his dirt bike discovered the body about 4 p.m. lying between the dark-blue sedan's left front fender and the concrete abutment of the overpass.

An ultralight aircraft with one person on board crashed at Smoketown Airport in Lancaster County about 5:45 p.m. Saturday, Federal Aviation Administration officials said. The county coroner's office identified the dead man as 30-year-old Michael Blank, but information on his hometown was not available. The Lancaster Intelligencer Journal reported Saturday night that the crash occurred shortly after takeoff. The cause of the crash was as yet unknown, pending an investigation at the scene.

A 27-year-old Lindenwold man was killed and two other people were injured in a shooting early Sunday morning outside the Twenty Horse Tavern in Camden. The dead man, whose identity was not released, was shot at 3:17 a.m. while sitting in a car outside the bar on the 800 block of North Second Street, according to a joint statement by Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk and Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson. The man was pronounced dead three hours later at Cooper University Hospital.

  Three men were killed and two other people injured in a series of attacks outside bars and nightclubs in South Jersey and Philadelphia over the weekend. Camden County authorities were searching Sunday for the attacker in the fatal stabbing of a 44-year-old man late Friday night in Chesilhurst. The attack on Francis Ponetta, of Chesilhurst, happened in the parking lot of Manny's Last Chance Saloon, in the 200 block of the White Horse Pike. Ponetta was stabbed in a leg shortly before 11 p.m., according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Three dead in Calif. standoff LOS ANGELES - A gunman who shot at police and holed up in a Watts home with three children Friday killed two people and himself, police said. SWAT team members entered the home after a two-hour standoff to find the man dead and a woman believed to be the children's mother wounded, authorities said. The woman died at a hospital, police spokesman Richard French said. The standoff began about 3 a.m. Friday as a domestic dispute. The gunman wounded a man in a truck outside the house who later died.

ATTEMPTS to impart a cool European tone to an American-style revenge saga pays slim dividends in the erratic "Dead Man Down. " It's the work of Niels Arden Oplev, director of the original "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," and he seems to be going for something like Nick Refn's critically acclaimed "Drive" - becalmed lead performances, a slow-burn narrative puncuated by spasms of outrageous violence, a thwarted romance in the middle of it. ...

GLEN ROSE, Texas - A 25-year-old man was charged with murder in connection with a shooting at a central Texas gun range that killed former Navy SEAL and American Sniper author Chris Kyle and his friend, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Sunday. Sgt. Lonny Haschel said in a news release that Eddie Ray Routh of Lancaster was arraigned Saturday evening on two counts of capital murder. Officer Kyle Roberts at the Erath County Jail said Routh arrived there Sunday morning and is being held on a combined $3 million bond.

One man was killed and a woman and child suffered minor injuries in the home invasion and robbery of an upscale home in a remote area of Hilltown Township, Bucks County. The robbers, both armed with handguns and considered armed and dangerous, remain at large, police said. FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents have joined the investigation. Police described one of the intruders as an Asian man who was wearing cargo pants and a black jacket, and the other as a taller man, about 5-foot-9.

An elderly Frankford man died and another was injured when fire swept through their rowhouse early Sunday morning. The blaze in the 5300 block of Frankford Avenue was reported at 8:18 a.m. and was under control within 30 minutes, officials said. Both men were taken to Temple University Hospital where one died and the other remained in stable condition, authorities said. Neighbors identified the dead man as John Blitchford, 84, owner of a local auto-repair shop. The other man pulled from the fire had not been immediately identified.

One man was killed and two others injured in a wild shootout between two cars that ended with one of the vehicles flipped over, police said. The incident occurred at 2:30 a.m. Sunday at Belmont Plateau and Chaminoux Drive Sunday. Police said one of the participants fled the scene on foot. While one of the cars flipped, the other drove off, police said. The dead man died from injuries he received in the accident, police said. One of the injured was hurt in the crash, while the other was shot, police said.