A 21-year-old man from Stephenson, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, was arrested on Monday morning after two incidents that began the evening before — a driver allegedly struck on purpose by a car in a Walmart parking lot in Iron Mountain, and a camper allegedly set on fire hours later at a home on County Road 577 in neighbouring Menominee County — the Michigan State Police said in a statement on Monday afternoon.
Source: WLUC TV6 (Michigan State Police statement)
The first call came just after 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 8. Troopers from the Michigan State Police Iron Mountain Post and officers of the Iron Mountain Police Department responded to the Walmart parking lot in Iron Mountain, the county seat of Dickinson County, after a suspect allegedly hit a person with a car on purpose, the state police said.
The person who was hit was taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, according to the release. Officers searched for the driver, but police were not able to find the suspect that evening, and the search carried into the night.
A second call, just before 2 a.m.: a camper on fire
Just before 2 a.m. on Monday, November 9, troopers were dispatched again — this time to an alleged arson of a camper at a home on County Road 577 in Menominee County, the county immediately south of Dickinson County along the Wisconsin border. No injuries from the fire were reported in the state police release.
Investigators quickly linked the two calls. A preliminary investigation showed that the two incidents were related and were believed to have been committed by the same suspect, the Michigan State Police said — the deliberate hit in the Iron Mountain parking lot on Sunday evening and the camper fire in Menominee County in the early hours of Monday.
Arrested just before 10 a.m. after an overnight search
Troopers and deputies from the Menominee County Sheriff's Office took the suspect into custody without incident just before 10 a.m. on Monday, the release said. He was lodged at the Dickinson County Jail. The Michigan State Police withheld his name pending arraignment, the formal first court step at which charges are read and bail is set.
Dickinson County jail booking records published on Monday listed a 21-year-old Stephenson man, Paul Michael Pennebecker Jr., booked at 9:56 a.m. on eight felony counts, with bond set at $1.5 million; the charges listed in the booking record included assault with intent to commit a felony and assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder. Those booking charges are allegations, not findings, and the state police have not yet publicly confirmed the name or the final charge list.
Source: Upper Peninsula Breaking News (Dickinson County jail booking record)
Everything attributed to the suspect in this report is an allegation by police or a jail booking record. He has not been arraigned in the account published on Monday, has not entered a plea, and is presumed innocent unless and until a court finds otherwise.
The search drew in an unusually wide list of agencies for a rural two-county case. Assisting the Iron Mountain Post, the state police said, were the Iron Mountain Police Department, the Michigan State Police Gladstone Post, the MSP Emergency Support Team and its Canine Unit, the Menominee County Sheriff's Office, the City of Menominee Police Department, Dickinson County Central Dispatch, Menominee County Central Dispatch, schools throughout Menominee County, and community members who helped provide information.
Why a small case pulled in two counties
Stephenson is a small city in Menominee County, in the southern Upper Peninsula on the Wisconsin state line; Iron Mountain, where the Sunday-evening incident happened, is the Dickinson County seat to the north-west. Distances in the Upper Peninsula are long, departments are small, and a suspect moving between two counties overnight is exactly the kind of case in which state police posts, two sheriff's offices, dispatch centres and even local schools — which the state police credited with helping pass information — end up working the same file.
For residents, the practical disruption was the visible one: a police search running through Sunday night in and around Iron Mountain and northern Menominee County, a burned camper on a county road, and a Monday-morning arrest. Police have not said what they believe connected the suspect to either victim or property, and they have not announced a motive.
What happens next
The next step is arraignment in court, where the suspect's name is formally entered, the charges are read, and a judge decides bail and the conditions of any release; the jail booking record already lists bond at $1.5 million. The state police investigation is continuing, and further detail — including how investigators say the two incidents connect — is expected to come through the court file rather than further statements. Anyone with information about either incident can contact the Michigan State Police Iron Mountain Post.