WHEELING, Ind. (WISH) — An Oxford, Indiana, woman died in the crash of her SUV and a tow truck on Monday morning, the Indiana State Police say.
Ashlena King, 29, died at the crash scene in eastern Carroll County.
Police were called just before 10 a.m. Monday to the intersection of county roads 100 North and 500 east. That’s in a rural area a mile north of State Road 18 and about 3 miles west of State Road 29.
King had stopped at the intersection before continuing to go north when an eastbound 2023 Hino Tow Truck driven by Joshua Cooper, 30, of Gary, hit the driver’s side of the her Ford Edge SUV. The vehicles came to rest in a field on the intersection’s northeast corner.
Cooper was not hurt.
State police helped local law enforcement to reconstruct the crash.
The crash site is about a 80-minute drive north of downtown Indianapolis.
Oxford, a town in Benton County, is about a 90-minute drive northwest of Indianapolis.
OXFORD, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) — The state’s first community mausoleum is still standing, but the National Register-listed structure built in 1908 faces an uphill battle with each passing season. The Oxford Community Mausoleum in Benton County was named to Indiana Landmarks’ 10 Most Endangered List in 2021. “It’s not reached that point of real deterioration, but we are starting to see rehabilitation needs,” said Tommy Kleckner, director of Indiana Landmarks’ western regional office.
Once called “Mansions of the Dead,” community mausoleums became all the rage in cities and towns across Indiana in the early 20th Century. But the movement started in Ohio.
“The community mausoleum really promoted this type of structure as an efficient, more sanitary form of burial, and oftentimes, more affordable,” said Kleckner. “A gentleman by the name of William Hood, who patented a community mausoleum design, started the National Mausoleum Company and then began to sort of peddle this design around the Midwest.”
Click here to watch the full segment from our Endangered Indiana series.
An unlock of the gates and a step through the arched opening, one can see the vaulted glass ceiling and lining the walls from top to bottom are four rows of Italian marble slabs. Just behind them are the crypts that house the deceased, nearly half of which were actually born before the Civil War.
But Kleckner says the structure has slowly fallen into disrepair, which led to being included on the Most Endangered list.
“We want to see the building brought back into a solid condition, preserve it, [and] ensure that it continues to function as a mausoleum, a respectful place for all those already here and those that may be interred here in the future,” he said.
Kleckner says the mausoleum needs repairs to the plaster, roof, and exterior masonry.
You can learn more about the mausoleum from Indiana Landmarks by clicking here.
OXFORD, Ind. (WLFI) — A man is recovering after being shot outside of a Benton County apartment.
State police said it happened just at about 4:40 a.m. Saturday on South Crown Street in Oxford.
Investigators believe it all started after an argument between two men as they were leaving a bar earlier that morning.
The men ended up at the apartment complex. That’s when one of the men was shot.
He was transported to a Lafayette hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
No names are being released at this time, and no arrests have been made.
- Download the WISH-TV app for your iPhone/iPad in the App Store
- Download the WISH-TV app in the Google Play store
- Like WISH-TV on Facebook
HAMMOND, Ind. (WLFI) – A former president of the Lafayette-based United Auto Workers Local 2317, who was indicted in August by a grand jury for embezzlement and fraud, was sentenced Friday for his crimes.
Michael Bennett, 47, of Oxford, was sentenced to 15 months in prison and a year on supervised probation for all six counts – three counts of theft of labor union assets and three counts of wire fraud – that he pleaded guilty to in October.
Bennett, who had been the local president for almost a decade, was accused of embezzling more than $100,000 over a five-year period by making out 170 checks to himself.
According to court documents, Bennett forged the signature of the local UAW’s treasurer on the checks and either cashed the checks or deposited the money into his bank account.
At the time of the incidents, the company’s treasurer was unaware Bennett was stealing funds.
According to the case, Bennett may have profited by renting out the Local 2317 union hall as a side business and not reporting the revenue. Bennett is accused of using the proceeds of these fraudulent reimbursements for his own personal expenses, as well as returning purchased items for the company’s activities and keeping the money for his own personal use.
UAW Local 2317 represents more than 700 employees at Oerlikon Fairfield, a manufacturer of engineered gear and drive products in Lafayette.
Never miss another Facebook post from WISH-TV
OXFORD, Ind. (WISH) — Funnel clouds were spotted Benton County on Monday evening.
Viewers captured the activity in pictures and videos.

If you have incredible weather pictures or videos, send them to WISH-TV here.