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October 31, 2003BENZIE SHERIFF: Deaths put cops in $30K holeSuspicious death, homicide in same week taxing policeByRecord-Eagle staff writer BEULAH - Benzie County sheriff Bob Blank plans to ask county commissioners for $30,000 to cover a budget shortfall caused by two recent death investigations. Blank said overtime and other costs associated with investigations of a homicide near Honor on Oct. 20 and a suspicious death at the Watervale Inn Sunday will cause his department to go over budget. On Thursday, the investigation into the death of 37-year-old Florence Unger was in "a holding pattern," Blank said. Autopsy results released Wednesday cited a blunt force trauma to the head as the cause of Unger's death. Blank said he is waiting for results from a backlogged state police crime lab to determine the circumstances of Unger's death. Prosecutor Anthony Cicchelli has gone further, naming Unger's husband, Mark Unger, as a homicide suspect in her death. The couple's 10- and 7-year-old children were removed from Mark Unger's custody on Tuesday, but no charges have been issued against him. In particular, investigators are trying to determine how Florence Unger fell about 12 feet from a boathouse onto concrete, where she presumably died, and then how she moved several feet into the waters of Herring Lake. Blank said that investigation and the investigation into the shooting death of 78-year-old Lillian Mae Ross, has taxed his department's resources. Three suspects are jailed in Ross' death. "Unfortunately for crime, there's no Superfund," Blank said. "The cost of investigation and prosecution fall back onto the county and the citizens."
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