Most people know that drinking and driving is an awful idea, but people don’t always think about staying off the roads while they are grief-stricken as well. Combine those two factors, and it is sadly a recipe for disaster. John Marsh of Erlanger learned this the hard way.
Marsh, 51, had recently lost his mother and attended her funeral. His family gathered for a dinner and he left with his wife, Gayle McNeese. Marsh’s sister said that he had been intoxicated and she would not have let him drive, but she didn’t realize he had left the house. He ended up crashing his car, a 2003 Honda Accord, in to a tree on the 4700 block of Idlewind Road. McNeese, 51, died in the wreck.
Marsh left the scene of the accident and found his way back to his sister’s house on Akin Lane in Burlington. He told his family that he killed McNeese, he couldn’t live without her and he was going to kill himself. Family members searched up and down the road for the crashed vehicle, but could not find it. It was eventually found on Idlewind Road and McNeese was still dead in the vehicle.
Somehow finding a rifle in his sister’s home, Marsh shot himself in the chin. His sister called 911 and he was air lifted to University Hospital in Cincinnati. He survived, but his current state of health in unknown.
The Boone County Sheriff’s Office Accident Reconstruction Unit continues to investigate the car crash. The shooting incident on Akin Lane is being investigated separately by the Boone County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division.
The Louisville car accident attorneys at Gray and White would like to offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Marsh and McNeese following this awful tragedy.