Vegetable oil used to free suspect

THORNTOWN, Ind. (AP) — Authorities used vegetable oil to free a man who said he became trapped in the vent shaft of a grocery store when he tried to rob it.

Adam F. Cooper, 19, was being held on $10,000 bail Friday on charges including burglary and criminal mischief.

Authorities said Cooper was found Tuesday night in the shaft between the ceiling and the roof of the store after someone heard him screaming for help.

Emergency workers cut Cooper’s sweat shirt away, poured vegetable oil taken from a store shelf down the shaft and handed him a rope. Four men on the roof then pulled him out, said Thorntown Deputy Marshal Chad Clendening.

“He’s really lucky someone heard him yelling,” Clendening said. “Otherwise, we probably would have been removing a corpse the next morning.”