Scoutmaster fatally stabbed on hiking trip

BUNKER HILL, Ind. -- A 76-year-old man was stabbed to death while leading two Boy Scouts on a hiking trip in northern Indiana, and a suspect who battered his mother and killed a dog at their home nearby is under arrest, police said.

Assistant scout leader Arthur L. Anderson had stopped to identify a tree on the Nickel Plate Trail in Bunker Hill on Sunday when a man came from behind and stabbed him in the neck, State Police said. Witnesses said the attack was unprovoked.

Anderson, of Kokomo, Ind., "was doing probably the most innocent thing he could do, leading a group of Boy Scouts," Police Sgt. Tony Slocum said. "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Shane C. Golitko, 22, of Bunker Hill, was arrested later after he ignored a state trooper's attempted traffic stop and led police on an eight-mile chase. Golitko was held at the Miami County Jail without bond on a murder charge and two felony counts of battery.

Slocum said another adult on the hike shielded the two boys, aged 11 and 12, from the horror of the attack, then called 911. Anderson died at the scene.

A minute before the 911 call about Anderson having been stabbed, Golitko's mother, Valerie Henson, called 911 to report that her son had assaulted her at their home, police said. Henson said that after she fled to a neighbor's house, her son walked to the trail where Anderson was stabbed later. She said her son returned, smashed up some of their belongings and stabbed the family's two dogs, a boxer and a pit bull. The boxer died. -- AP