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Since You Asked: Fugitive may have used grenade to commit suicide Wednesday Dec 13, 2017 at 7:19 AM In August 1982, when a Crater Lake National Park ranger chased a speeding car to make an arrest, the car's driver killed himself with a grenade that exploded inside the car. The story got wide coverage for a day or two in Oregon and nationally. The driver was identified as a German national. There's never been a follow-up story giving the motive for why he tried to evade arrest for speeding and why he exploded the grenade. I believe the car was taken to the bomb squad in Medford. Can you provide any more details? — KRT   The driver, Amdris Merzejuskis, may have committed suicide using the grenade or might have intended to use it as a weapon against the pursuing park ranger and dropped it accidentally, according to the Crater Lake Institute group, which includes former National Park Service employees and others interested in Crater Lake. According to an account on the group's website, Patrol Ranger Alice Siebecker attempted to stop a Volvo that was speeding slightly on the park's south entrance road. The driver refused to stop and she gave chase. As Siebecker was coming up from behind, the Volvo suddenly exploded, ran off the road, flew through the air and hit a pumice embankment. The driver, a German national, was instantly killed. His body remained in the wrecked car for four hours while the Jackson County Sheriff's Office bomb squad and the FBI checked over the vehicle for hidden explosives. The explosion was caused by a hand grenade that Merzejuskis had been holding in his hand at the time it went off. The explosion blew off his left hand and face, according to the Crater Lake Institute account. During the search of the car, authorities found a knife and a pistol stored in the driver's side door, a rifle in the trunk, several sets of false identification and two California license plates. The Volvo had been stolen from a San Diego, Calif., car rental company. Merzejuskis was wanted in Texas on drug smuggling charges and had served time in federal prison. According to the Crater Lake Institute, the park ranger left her job after the incident and returned to her previous career making violins. The grenade incident wasn't the only unusual occurrence during the eventful year of 1982, according to the institute: A hiker near the park found plane wreckage and skeletal remains from a 1975 crash that killed a teacher and two students. Two peregrine falcon chicks were flown in from California to replace three eggs that failed to hatch for a pair of falcons living in the park. The chicks fledged successfully under the care of their adoptive parents. A park ranger needed six shots to dispatch a beaver that had been hit and injured by a car. A 12-year-old boy caught 37 salmon off Wizard Island in five hours. A lost woman spent the night in a tree after seeing four bears and was rescued by helicopter. — Send questions to “Since You Asked,” Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by email to [email protected]. To see a collection of columns, go to mailtribune.com/youasked. We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them.