Strange Justice In GHB Death

A man awaiting trial for murdering a handicapped man with GHB died after being subdued with a Taser gun. The Chicago Tribune picks up the story:

Taser victim tied to slaying;
Ex-con awaited trial in '01 death

By Russell Working, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter David Heinzmann contributed to this report.

A man who died after Chicago police subdued him with a Taser stun gun was a former Chicago bond trader and ex-con who was facing charges in the death of a mentally handicapped man, authorities reported Friday.

Ronald Alan Hasse, 54, of Cedar Lake, Ind., was accused of burying the body of Michael Denvit, 25, a Merrillville, Ind., dishwasher, at Hasse's parents' farm in Cedar Lake in June 2001 after the younger man died at Hasse's home, the Lake County sheriff's office said.

Hasse died Thursday after police used a stun gun on him. Police say he attempted to bite an officer's arm on the 26th floor of a Lakeview apartment building. ...

Police found drugs at the apartment, Sgt. Robert Cargie said Friday.

Denvit's death was the subject of a February 2004 Tribune story after Hasse's sister, Julie, told officials her brother may have been involved.

The case began in June 2001, when Hasse and a friend--Jeffrey Allen Haugh of Knoxville, Tenn.--allegedly invited the gregarious Denvit home from a Merrillville bar and gave him GHB, known as a date-rape drug, detectives said he later admitted. Hasse insisted that Denvit died after he voluntarily used the drug, but the victim's parents doubted this story.

Deputies suspected Hasse slipped the drug to Denvit then panicked when he died. But investigators could not come up with evidence after the body had decomposed for two years in a grave at the farm of Hasse's father, said Mike Higgins, spokesman for the Lake County sheriff's office.

Amazing. This guy kills someone and buries the body ... pretty bad stuff ... but it doesn't occur to him that he needs to change his ways. As it says above, drugs were found in Hasse's apartment.