(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 – but not enough – thus far.)
While most Americans are concerned with the coronavirus and worried about when their stimulus checks will arrive and when unemployment will kick in, there’s this lady named Gwen Wood, a native of Cameron and a current resident of Benwood.
She’s a fighter, see, and her 10 Toughman championship belts are pieces of proof of that fact, but what consumes her during these pandemic days doesn’t concern overcoming COVID-19. Those who know her are quite aware life remains about her son, Colby Brown, and discovering without a doubt how the 19-year-old died last August in Huntington.
Those reading these chapters already are aware of many of the facts, including:
- He was a first-day sophomore at Marshall University the day he passed away.
- Colby died from injuries suffered after falling from the McCoy Road Bridge, an overpass spanning Interstate 64 at approximately 7 p.m. on August 26.
- He sustained five bone fractures to his right arm and leg, two fractures to his left leg, and a pelvic fracture, too.
- The investigators with the lead agency, the W.Va. State Police, ruled the death as a suicide while citing drug use.
- Two toxicology reports have indicated only marijuana was found in his system at the time of his death.
- The private investigator hired by Wood produced an eight-page report that, at the very end, ruled Colby’s death as, “accidental.”
Mostly Repeated Photos
This sixth chapter in this series can offer only repeats of photos previously utilized because trips to Huntington were planned to examine several sites, including the spot from where state troopers believe Colby leaped to his death, where the young man lived, the path he allegedly traveled from a friend’s house to the McCoy Road Bridge, and of his friends who, along with the Brown and Wood families, anxiously await the real reasons why they lost him.
“I know we’re all supposed to be safe and to protect each other right now, and we’re all doing what we’re supposed to do, but this is so frustrating because Colby was a topic again. What happened to him was a topic again, and even more people started reaching out to us,” Wood explained. “We were supposed to go down there again and talk to everyone again.
“I really believed that we were going to find out something that would have taken us closer to whatever the answers are,” she said. “Now we’re stuck again, it feels like, because of this health situation around the world; there’s so much we can’t do now, and no one seems to know how long it will be until we can. It’s so frustrating I really can’t explain it.”
During her search, Wood has spoken with everyone from the lead investigators to the young lady who stopped and ran to Colby following his fall. There’s blurry video footage, an online footprint, Colby’s unprocessed-by-police vehicle, and there’s knowing him, too.
“So many things involved with his death make my mind race pretty much every day,” Wood admitted. “But it comes down to knowing him and how tight our family has been forever. He and his sisters (Shelby and Darby) didn’t have secrets. I know that, and he always talked honestly with me and his dad.
“That’s why we all believe we would have known there was something that wrong in his life, and that’s why, once we can somehow move forward with everything again, all of his friends will continue to help us,” she said. “Our family is not looking to blame someone for something. We’re trying to understand it, and right now, we don’t at all.”
Why the ‘No Way’?
Three questions:
- What person goes to their classes if they intend to take their own life the same day?
- Who doesn’t spend the thousands of dollars in their bank account before making such a decision?
- Why go to the gym the same day to better your physical and mental health if you are planning to plummet 109 feet to your death a mere seven hours afterward?
“I ask those questions to myself probably every day and I never come up with any answers,” Wood said. “No one I have asked sees it as normal either. I always hope someone has a different answer other than, ‘No one.’
“I know it could have gone down that way. I realize that; I really do. And I know every mother wants to believe they are very close with their kids,” she said. “We’ve always been a family who has welcomed pretty much anyone into it because that’s our family. That’s how we go about it, and it was always something Colby loved about his family.”
A fourth question?
Colby had moved down to Huntington a few days before his first day as a sophomore after his first-year grades were impressive enough to retain all of his scholarships, including the Promise from the Mountain State.
Not a single person who came into contact with the 19-year-old former OVAC all-star has reported experiencing a troublesome conversation with him or anything close to a clue as to how such a tragedy could occur.
“We’ve always heard about his smile, and about his positive attitude,” Wood said. “He was always trying to get his family to eat better and to work out more so we would improve our health, and he did the same with his friends, too.
“I could use some of that right now,” she said. “That’s one of a trillion reasons why I wish he were still here with us.”
From Here, Where?
Wood is afraid she’ll never get Colby’s phone back from the state troopers.
She’s fearful that because of the unknown length of the health crisis people will forget that August day.
“I hired the private investigator almost immediately for that reason, and that’s why I was pleased with the story series because people who remembered something, well, they were reaching out to me before all of this,” Wood said. “But since all the closures have taken place and all the students went home, none of us have heard from anyone. It’s like it just went away.
“There were some people who were texting with me, but when the stories started to get a lot of attention, they quit responding,” she continued. “I want those people to know that they can keep contacting me with what they know, and if they want to stay anonymous, that’s fine with me. If it gives us a direction, that’s all we ask.”
Wood knows the case is closed as far as the State Police are concerned, but it’s not to her, and it won’t be until she knows why her child went over that bridge.
“I’ve been in the area where they said Colby was, and if he wanted to do it, I know he was strong enough to get himself over the railings,” Wood said. “But he was very tall, too, and if for some reason he got up on that ledge, I could see how he could have fallen from there accidentally.
“I know we’re approaching the worst part of this pandemic and that there are so many who have passed away already. It’s very sad, and I am including those families in my prayers every single day,” she added. “What I hope though is that anyone reading this who knows something will reach out to me. Of course, we’ll use the phone because that’s what is safe right now, and if it’s anonymous, that fine with me. Like I said, it’s all about something else to look into.”
