THE BRIGHT SIDE
Visit Lake Geneva is organizing the Big Bundle Up once again this year. Collections of any and all warm winter clothing is being accepted at the Visitors Center on Wrigley Drive Lake Geneva. The Big Bundle Up campaign is an annual event that collects new and gently used winter clothing items. The donations are given to a different local organization that distributes the items to those in need. Residents are encouraged to drop off donations to warm up the people of Walworth County. Donations are being accepted now through December 31.
A man from Whitewater has been charged in connection to a fatal hit-and-run accident from 2020.
Delavan police responded to a home on Fox Lane around 10:10 p.m. the night of Nov. 14, 2020, and found the 59-year-old Rendon unresponsive. A criminal complaint states Rendon was found knocked out of his shoes. He was near an open mailbox with the mail still inside it, and his cell phone was on the road. An autopsy determined Rendon died of blunt force injuries in a “pedestrian versus vehicle crash.” Prosecutors say 35-year-old Travis Brown struck and killed Noe Rendon Jr. and later told officials he “hit a deer” hundreds of miles from the scene. A woman stated in March 2021 that she was with her brother, another man, and Brown at the bar on the night of November 14th. She said she and her brother were driving and saw what they thought was a deer on the road. They stopped, found Rendon, and attempted CPR until first responders arrived.
The brother denied knowing Brown had hit anyone. According to the complaint, Brown reported a crash to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation on Nov. 20, 2020, six days after Rendon’s death. He said he “hit a deer” in Burnett County which is more than 300 miles northwest of Delavan. Insurance records showed where Brown had his truck serviced, and investigators obtained pictures of that business. The pictures showed the damage to Brown’s truck before it was repaired. Investigators showed those pictures to a Wisconsin State Patrol crash reconstruction expert, per the complaint, who determined the damage was “not consistent” with a truck hitting a deer but “was consistent” with the truck hitting a pedestrian. This was not Brown’s first crash. In April 2018 he was involved in a single car rollover and left the scene without reporting the accident.
