Week in Review: Bar Fight Turns Deadly, Designated Driver Shot in the Throat and a House Explosion

Too busy last week to stay up to date on all the news happening in and around North St. Louis County? Not to worry. Patch has your back.

In case you missed them, here were some of the top headlines from the two North County Patchsites—Florissant Patch and Hazelwood Patch—over the last few days:

• Did you decorate your house for the holidays this year? Enter our "Deck the House" contest and you could win $100,000 for your local school district and $500 to pay your electric bills!
• Warm our hearts with your best holiday pictures! Win prizes by sharing your snapshots in our contest, sponsored by Patch and the St. Charles Convention and Visitors Bureau, which runs the annual Christmas on Main Street.
• A Florissant man who was beaten in a bar fight over a washers game died.
• Kirk Sayles, the man who died in a Sunday morning house explosion he apparently caused himself, used gasoline to set off the blast.
• A man robbed a woman at gunpoint on Monday in Hazelwood, .
• Two years in the making, ground is finally breaking on Holiday Inn Express in the City of Hazelwood.
• A man was shot in the throat by his friend Sunday night after the man had suggested to his friend that he was unfit to drive home because he had too much to drink.
• A 2014 trial date was set in a Florissant couple’s lawsuit against a Creve Coeur OBGYN practice. The lawsuit claims the couple's child was decapitated during birth.
• Hazelwood School District's .
• Arrest warrants were issued Monday for 45-year-old Timothy Rogers by the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office for first-degree assault and armed criminal action.
• Patch readers reacted to the ripple effects of the collapse of Hostess Brands, which hit Patch towns around St. Louis as employees lost their jobs last week.