Man Razed Middletown House While Wife Was Away

No one—not the police, the district attorney, or one of the two people who used to live there—is offering an explanation for why James Rhein roared down the street with an excavator on Monday and demolished the house he shared with his wife in Middletown.

Mortgage payments on the house were in arrears, according to News 12.

No one knew it was coming. Authorities had to call for emergency shut-off of water, electric and gas service.

Rhein’s wife, Diane Andryshak, cried as she talked to the media Wednesday in front of the rubble on Woodland Avenue.

“Everything I owned was in that house,” Andryshak said, the Times Herald Record reported.

Rhein has been charged with felony criminal mischief and freed on $300 bail, the paper said.

Read the entire article on the recordonline.com

SCREENSHOT: News12