MACKINAC ISLAND -- The bodies of two Michigan sisters were found at the bottom of a steep hill on Mackinac Island, the latest in a string of snowmobile-related fatalities and injuries.
Mackinac Island police said 59-year-old island resident Karen Schwarck and 57-year-old Edith Bonno, of Canton Township in Wayne County, were snowmobiling Sunday when they apparently rode over the edge of the West Bluff.
The women were out on a photography excursion. Police say in a release that Schwarck's husband reported them missing at 10:15 p.m. Sunday.
Their bodies were found after 2 a.m. Monday.
Police say alcohol was not a factor in their deaths.
Mackinac Island is in the Straits of Mackinac, about 310 miles north of Detroit.
And a Cheboygan woman died after a snowmobile she was working on struck her.
Nora Kilpatrick, 66, died Feb. 5 after she attempted to remove the cover from a snowmobile parked at her residence off Heilman Road in Cheboygan County's Munroe Township.
The snowmobile was running and when she removed the cover, the throttle caught and the snowmobile lurched and slammed into her. The snowmobile then crashed into a parked vehicle.
Kilpatrick was transported to Cheboygan Memorial Hospital, where she died.
In a nearby community, an Ohio man was released from the hospital after he collided with another snowmobile.
Steven Staub, 40, lost control of his snowmobile on a curve near Chandler Hill Road in Boyne Falls on Feb. 5, and collided into a snowmobile driven by Bradley Stewart, 57, of Lincoln.
Staub was thrown from his snowmobile, and transported to Northern Michigan Regional Hospital; Stewart was not injured.
At least 13 people have died in snowmobile-related accidents this winter, state officials said.
