Getting Wet

You've got to have your feet on the ground to do stuff like this: To some of the people who say they saw Nathaniel Cobbs walking through the city's East End on July 8, he didn't seem "wetted up."

He stopped at a crosswalk, grabbed the overhead bar of a traffic signal and ripped off a few pull-ups — but young men chinning themselves on traffic poles isn't an uncommon sight in Newburgh.

By the time he showed up at Nicole Wheeler's apartment on Clark Street, though, Cobbs, 25, was showing classic signs of being high on PCP, called "wet" here.

He broke through a locked door. He grabbed Wheeler, the mother of his three kids. He fought with another man and talked crazy.

"I'm gonna die," he told Wheeler. "And I'm taking you with me."