Seymour police Friday identified the driver of Tuesday’s fatal crash on Route 313 as 51-year-old Mark Beers of Southbury.
Beers died from blunt force trauma, according to the medical examiner’s office.
The police investigation continues as authorities wait for the results of toxicology tests.
Earlier version of story follows:
Police said one person is dead after a one-car crash on Route 313 in Seymour near the town’s border with Woodbridge Tuesday (Sept. 3) night.
In a prepared statement issued Wednesday (Sept. 4) afternoon, police said they have made a “tentative identification” of the person killed — who they believe to be a 51-year-old Southbury man — but a positive identification won’t be made “until further testing is completed” and an autopsy is performed at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Seymour Police Lt. Paul Satkowski said in the statement that the crash was first reported to police by a 911 call about 10:44 p.m.
Police, EMS, and firefighters were dispatched to the scene.
They arrived to find a pickup truck with “significant” damage fully engulfed in flames, Satkowski said, and an eyewitness report that the driver was still inside, possibly trapped.
“First responders were unable to get near the vehicle due to the intense heat and flames of the fire,” the statement said. “Once the fire was extinguished the remains of a human body were located inside of the vehicle.”
Satkowski said the department’s preliminary investigation of the crash indicates the truck, which was towing a landscaping trailer, was headed west on Rimmon Road (Route 313) when the driver, for unknown reasons, failed to negotiate a turn in the road, lost control of the vehicle, and hit a tree head-on after leaving the road and going up an embankment.
“Upon impact with the tree the vehicle immediately burst into flames,” Satkowski’s statement said. “The operator, who was the sole occupant of the vehicle, was unable to escape the vehicle and was burned beyond recognition and therefore pronounced deceased at the scene.”
Traffic was rerouted around the scene of accident for hours as police investigated.
Satkowski’s statement said the crash remains under investigation by Seymour Police Department Accident Reconstruction personnel, with assistance from the Seymour Fire Marshal’s Office, the State Fire Marshall’s Office, and the Connecticut State Police Collision Analysis Reconstruction Squad.
Click the play button below to hear emergency radio dispatches in the minutes after the crash was reported. The audio has been edited, and is not in real time.
