(P(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.)
(Publisher’s Note: This is the fifth in a series of articles that examine the passing of 19-year-old Colby Brown, a 2018 graduate of Cameron High School, who attended Marshall University in Huntington. Colby was pronounced dead on Aug. 26, 2019, once paramedics treated him in the middle of Interstate 64.)
Colby Brown experienced his first plane flight when traveling to visit his cousin Dalton, a young man three years older who felt more like an older brother and his best friend.
It was a 17-hour trip taken to Japan with his aunt Brooke Myers and his cousin Bailey, and the trio toured the Asian country for 13 days to taste the native cuisine, enjoy the culture, and see the sights.
But there was one piece of natural beauty they didn’t get to see until, of course, Colby came up with the solution.
“We saw as much as we could see and tried as many different foods that we could, based on what Dalton told us about,” Myers said. “And we got to take a tour of Dalton’s ship, which is the U.S.S. Blue Ridge, and we took a tour of his base, too.
“The one thing we really wanted to see was Mount Fuji, but we couldn’t go because of the weather. It was always too rainy and foggy,” she recalled. “That’s when Colby said he was going to get a tattoo of Mount Fuji on his leg, and sure enough, when he walked out of the tattoo place, there it was, Mount Fuji on his thigh just like he said. He told us that any time we wanted to see Mount Fuji, all we had to do was look at his leg. That’s the kind of person Colby was.”
Toxicology Report No. 2
On Aug. 30, 2019, the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner released the initial Toxicology Report, one that found no ethanol, but did discover delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), Marijuana Metabolite (Carboxy-THC), and Marijuana Metabolite (11-Hydroxy THC), but not mushrooms like Jon Crow told authorities and private investigator John P. Casey.
Then, on Oct. 31, 2019, Wood, Colby’s mother, spoke directly with Dr. James C. Kramer, the chief toxicologist for the state of West Virginia and requested a second round of testing to discover whether or not Colby had consumed synthetic marijuana, LSD, PCP, and mushrooms.
Her request was accepted, and Dr. Kramer told Wood during that conversation, “It’s going to be pretty pricey for the state, but this is important. We definitely want to get to address your concerns.
“And we’ll send what’s called an addendum report, and we’ll have these listed on there and whether they were found or not.”
Wood received that second report early this week and the only additions to it read, “Blood – Synthetic Cannabinoids – None Detected.
“NOTE: A drug screen for therapeutic and abused drugs using LC/MS/MS was performed and additional drugs were not detected.”
“I was happy to see that on the second toxicology report because that was one of the things I told the medical examiner should be tested for along with a few other possibilities like the mushrooms Jon Crow had told the private investigator about. Whether those other drugs were tested for, I don’t know, but Dr. Kramer told me the second report would state if those were found or not,” Wood said. “I asked Dr. Kramer to request testing for LSD and PCP, too, because I know those drugs are around sometimes in the college atmosphere, and let’s be honest; we are talking about Huntington, where so much drug abuse has been reported over the last 10 years or so.
“To this point, though, I’ve left three messages and no one has gotten back to me so I can ask that question. I just want to make sure because I know Dr. Kramer said it would be expensive for the state to test for all of that, but he told me he was going to make the request because he felt it was important for us to get the answers we need,” she continued. “I don’t know if I would call the second toxicology report encouraging, but it did ease my mind a little bit because of everything I’ve read about what synthetic cannabis can do to someone’s brain and their thoughts. The second report also has further convinced me that someone knows something that they’re not telling.”
Unannounced Visit
Because of that strong belief, Wood, Shelby, and Wood’s sister, Brandie, traveled to Huntington for an unannounced visit to the house where Colby last lived. The excuse was to retrieve more of Colby’s belongings, but that was not the genuine intention.
“What we really wanted to do was to get our foot in the door so we could take a look around and to go to Colby’s room,” Shelby explained. “We wanted to drop in unannounced, but no one was home, so I messaged Cole Clutter, and he said he would give me the key if I went to the bar where they were all at when I called.
“But then his twin brother, Ryan, messaged me back and said they would meet me at the house, but he wasn’t the only one who met us. They all came including Jon Crow and Parker D’Antonio, and there wasn’t a second when we weren’t followed no matter where we went,” she recalled. “And when the three of us were talking, those boys interjected like they were trying to control the conversation. Maybe they thought we were too stupid to notice, but nobody is that stupid.”
5-5:30 p.m.?
Wood has self-examined the social media platforms Colby had joined in an effort to create a timeline for the day he passed away, and she can prove a trip to his gym and that her son attended both classes that afternoon.
She also knows he played video games with friends before, of course, he suddenly felt ill and then just up and left. Online, Colby vanished, too.
“I’ve collected as much information as I can as far as to what Colby was doing on the day he died, and when I look at everything, I feel something went very wrong between 5-5:30 p.m. I don’t know what it could have been, but that’s when his phone location was turned off for some reason, and then the fall took place around 7 p.m., and we have no idea why,” Wood explained. “Was there an altercation? Did he get hit in the back of his head? Is that what fractured his skull? Were they goofing off, and he fell? I feel something happened first and then someone got scared and they did something that led to Colby being on the interstate.
“Did someone do something to save their own ass? I don’t know, but I really, honestly, can’t believe he jumped like the State Police reported. I know I’m his mother and that I am completely biased. I realize that, but I also knew my son,” she said. “That’s why we keep asking the questions we’re asking, and if that leads to someone coming after me because I’m not letting this go without the answers, that’s fine with me. I’m not going to back down.”
To What Extent?
In fact, Wood would be willing if an investigator wished to take another look at Colby Brown.
“If they have to come and exhume Colby, I would absolutely agree to that because maybe there are answers to be found,” Wood said. “Who knows? If those answers are found, then every parent would find out what crazy things can happen that you can never be prepared for. If that’s how they can find the answers they need to finally solve what really happened, then yes, I would support more testing on him.
“You hear all the time, R.I.P., meaning rest in peace, but I don’t believe that’s what he’s doing. There’s no way he’s resting in peace with so many people believing he took his own life. Anyone who knew Colby knows this didn’t happen the way the State Police investigators are saying,” she continued. “I know he’d want me and my family to keep going on this. We realize we can’t bring Colby back, but we also know we can bring Colby’s integrity back.”
What If It’s True?
The question had to be asked.
What if, at the end of all of the questions and all of the searching for answers, the family finds out their beloved “Golden Boy” did take his own life?
“I really don’t believe in that as the end that Colby committed suicide, but if that’s what we find out, then that’s something we’ll have to deal with then,” Wood said. “There are a lot of reasons why we don’t think that’s what happened because of what we know he did that day, like go to the gym and go to his two classes. I think he would have spent his savings or that he would have given the money to his sisters if that’s something he had planned, but he didn’t.
“If that’s really what happened, though, and there’s proof of it, then we’ll have to find out why.”
Colby, a talented athlete at Cameron High School who was the Dragons quarterback, did attempt to contend for playing time with the Thundering Herd, but soon after returning to Marshall for the second semester of his freshman year, he was told he was wasting his time and likely would never see playing time.
In other words, Colby got cut, and his dream of playing Division I football was over. Could that reality have driven him to depression?
“We didn’t know how he was going to take that because we thought he really wanted to play for Marshall,” Shelby said. “But, when I talked with him about it I told him that he was much more than a football player to those who really knew him. It was at that point when he told me that he was actually relieved because, after the longest time he was finally going to be just Colby and not Colby the athlete.
“He was OK with it after we told him he didn’t let down his family, and he even told his high school coach that he was relieved because he knew there was another quarterback the same age who was much faster than he was,” she said. “He told Coach (Scott) Holt that he looked forward to just being himself and not Colby the football player. He was a pretty damn good person even without being such a good athlete.”
Air Conditioning
Shelby also knew of a conflict that was present in the house where her brother lived in Huntington that involved one of his roommates, Parker D’Antonio.
“Parker was good friends with the Clutter twins, and Colby was good friends with them, too, because the three of them were from Cameron, but when it came to Colby and Parker, well, Colby wasn’t a big fan,” Shelby reported. “Colby looked at Parker as a spoiled frat boy, basically, and he looked at him as a kid with money who would be a tattletale instead of confronting a situation.
“They had a thing over a room in the house because Colby claimed the one with the air-conditioner, and I know the two of them argued over that,” she said. “I think Parker was intimidated by Colby because my brother was a good-looking guy who attracted a lot of attention from the girls, and that made Parker jealous. We believe that’s why Parker always called him “the kid,” and I know Colby didn’t like that at all.”
There exist three different scenarios, Shelby insisted, and those are accidental as the private investigator concluded, homicide which the investigator ruled out, and suicide as the State Police investigating agents, Cpl. Anthony Whittington and Sgt. J.L. Joyce, reported about 30 minutes after the fall.
“The more that we’ve searched, though, we feel that we may have narrowed it down to one or two scenarios,” said Shelby. “There’s just so much weirdness about this whole situation, and things just keep coming up.
“I know there are people in families who have had someone commit suicide who immediately say that they couldn’t have done that. I know that’s how most of them feel because it’s a person they loved, and denying it happened the way the police say it did just comes naturally,” she added. “But yeah, this is different, and that’s because our family is different than most others, and that’s because of how close we all truly were.”
