ARCHIVED: Suicide? No Way – Part 1

(Publisher’s Note: A new chapter to this series of stories will publish in the near future so we believe in order to get new readers to discover the series, the best thing to do is to re-publish it beginning today and continue during this coming week. One of the main reasons why Gwen Wood, her daughters, and her friends and family agreed to tell this story was to raise more questions in hopes additional information about this accident would flow their way … and that has taken place thus far.)

Not for a single second has she believed what law enforcement has told her.

That is why Colby David Brown’s mother, Gwen Wood, continues her efforts to gain as much information as possible because she is without a doubt confident her youngest of three children would not have taken his own life.

Not on the first day of his sophomore year at Marshall University in Huntington.

Not after playing video games with a number of friends.

And not from an interstate overpass 109 nine feet above I-64.

Colby was afraid of heights, he had big plans for the approaching weekend, and he was ecstatic about taking his dog, Penny, to live with him at his apartment.

Suicide? No way.

“Suicide? No way. I didn’t believe it then, and I’ll never believe it,” Wood said. “We were told at first that he was sick, and he went there, got sick, and that the railing was only up to a person’s knees. But when we went there to see for ourselves, I knew that was impossible because that railing came up to my neck. It wasn’t some kind of accident, and none of the stories we’ve been told add up.

“And the (state) police just don’t seem as if they want to give me any of the information that I have asked for, and it seems as if they don’t want to look into it any more than what they have,” she continued. “They’ve just called it a suicide, and I know that’s not the case. I knew my son better than any other person on this planet, and I’m telling you, Colby did not take his own life. Something went horribly wrong, and all I am trying to do is connect the dots.”

The Golden Boy.

He was born on May 14, 2000, and he had two older sisters, Darby, and Shelby.

Although he and his mother had moved away from the Cameron area, he continued to attend Cameron High to remain in class with his longest friends and to play sports as a Dragon.

And Colby definitely did that, playing quarterback and defensive back in football, and on the baseball team, he was a pitcher and the third baseman. He had wrestled, too, before beginning his high school career.

“He was very dedicated to whatever sport he was playing at the time, and he took care of his body; that’s for sure,” Wood said. “He would make everything a competition, too, because he was trying to get the rest of us to take care of our bodies the same way he did.

“He was a team player and never took any credit for anything he did on the field or on the court,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons why everyone loved him. He was just a nice, humble kid who just wanted to be a friend to as many people he could.”

Bright Future

Colby was intelligent, too, earning a Promise Scholarship from the state to help with financing his college education. He was majoring in business administration and remained very athletic during his freshman year at Marshall University.

The young man had girlfriends in high school, but he had not been in a committed relationship since heading to Huntington, according to his mother.

“He was really concentrating on his grades, and he earned terrific grades, too,” Wood said. “He wanted to be something when he got older. That was really important to him. He was tight with his money and was a saver because he didn’t want to have to depend on anyone for anything.

“We were a very close family, and after I had moved to Charleston to care for my best friend while she was going through chemotherapy, he would come over from Huntington to visit pretty often. After his sister Darby moved to Charleston, he would visit more often,” she continued. “We all knew everything about each other because that’s what real families are like.”

Always Doing the Right Thing

Gwen Wood knew when she would see her baby boy, he would brighten dark moods, lighten serious situations, and exude love for those in his life.

“Colby was a happy person, and he was always smiling,” Wood insisted. “And everyone loved him, and everyone spoiled him because he would do anything for anyone at any given time. His grandfather would always call him the ‘Golden Boy’ because he was the baby of the family and because Colby could do no wrong in anyone’s eyes.

“He always did the right thing, and he was always there for his family. I don’t remember ever hearing him talk bad about anyone else, and he had nothing to do with all the gossiping that people do so much of,” his mother said. “If one of us wasn’t doing the right thing, he was always the first person to tell you about it.”

August 26, 2019

She was in Charleston caring for her friend when she spoke with Colby that Monday morning before he headed to his first classes of the new school year at Marshall. They discussed his plans for the day and evening, and then the conversation ended.

It would be the last time they would communicate.

“I had gotten him some things for his apartment, and I wanted to let him know that I would bring the stuff to him in a day or two,” Wood recalled. “I know he also went to his gym just before noon, but I’m not sure what time he left there. He was excited about his first day of his sophomore year, and he was really excited because he was able to take his dog down with him because it was allowed where he was living.

“His apartment was pretty close to the university on 17^th Street, and he had three roommates including the Clutter twins from the Cameron area,” she explained. “The twins really haven’t told us much about that day other than they wish they had more information for us.”

She has learned that Colby went to a friend’s apartment to play video games when his final class of the day was over at 3:45 p.m. Wood is also aware that his location was turned off on his phone between 6-6:30 p.m.

Incident

At 6:53 p.m., according to Wood’s records, the Cabell County 911 posted that a portion of I-64 eastbound would be closed for a significant amount of time and that motorists should navigate a different path because of an “incident.” At 7:03 p.m., a 911 dispatcher reported a possible “jumper” incident in the area of the McCoy Road Bridge, a span that allows traffic to flow above the interstate.

The overpass is approximately three miles from the apartment where Colby was playing video games, and Wood has found two different paths her son could have traveled before parking his vehicle near the span.

“But I don’t know which way he went so I can check to see if there are any cameras that recorded something that might help make this make some sense,” she said. “And the investigators couldn’t help with that either, and I’m not sure why not.

“And there was a girl who saw him land, and she pulled over and stood over him and prayed,” Wood reported. “I was told that she wasn’t technically a witness because she didn’t see the whole incident from the top of that bridge, but she came to the funeral, and she begged me not to allow them to bury him until we knew what had happened.”

Colby, wearing black Nike basketball shorts, tennis shoes, and a t-shirt, was not struck by a vehicle traveling I-64 before the freeway was closed by law enforcement. Deputies with the Cabell County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene as did West Virginia troopers and officers with the Huntington Police Department.

Items Left Behind

When Wood visited the site, she discovered a sheet on the side of the interstate that was used to cover Colby’s body before he was transported away from the scene.

“I now have that sheet, and it has some of his blood on it, and I also have the shoe he lost during his fall,” she explained. “Those first responders just left those things on the side of the road for some reason.

“I really hope that’s not common practice,” Wood said. “When you lose your loved one, you want anything and everything you can get.”

From Here.

She just wants answers.

Something has to make sense because right now none of it does.

Wood has been attempting to gain additional information from the responding agencies, especially the state police because the troopers are the primary investigators.

At one point, though, she was asked why she was the only family member calling with questions.

“I told them that it was probably because the rest of my family was grieving Colby’s passing, but that grieving was something that I couldn’t do until I know exactly what happened to my son,” she said. “I told the officer that if I let too much time pass, it would mean I had less of a chance to find out what really happened.

Not a Priority???

“At one point, we went to talk to the investigators, and each time we were told there was no one there we could talk to because of vacations and a death in a family,” she recalled. “Each time we were told by someone that we would have to go back another day, or we were told that it was a suicide and not a priority.”

She’s not done, though, because Wood is convinced there’s something of a secret being kept by someone.

“At this point, I just have to hope that someone who knows the truth comes forward with it,” the mother said. “I know that person exists. I can feel it.

“Someone knows something,” Wood insisted. “Colby wanted to be a role model, so there’s no way he would want anyone to believe he would do something like this to himself. Never did he say anything about being depressed about his life. My son loved his life.”

(Photos provided by Gwen Wood)