02/17/12 Shortly after 6:00 a.m. Thursday morning, Indiana State Police Troopers Rodd Schuh and Patrick O’Keefe responded to a vehicle crash on Beech Rd. north of Bourbon that claimed the life of one man. The crash was reported by a passerby that had noticed tire tracks that left the roadway and disappeared into a ditch.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the driver of a 1998 Ford F-150 pickup truck apparently drove off the east side of Beech Rd. and into a large ditch that was filled with approximately six inches of water. The crash happened just south of 7th Rd. in north eastern Marshall County.
The driver of the truck, Louis J. Cady, 75, of Nappanee, was south bound on Beech Rd. when for an unknown reason he drove off the dirt roadway and into a deep ditch. Cady’s truck rolled and came to a rest on its roof as it slid down the steep embankment.
Cady was pronounced dead at the scene by Marshall County Coroner William Cleavenger. Cady was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Mishawaka where an autopsy will be conducted later today in an attempt to determine the cause of death.
The crash remains under investigation at this time by state police crash re-constructionists. Cady was wearing his seatbelt.
The state police were assisted in the investigation by the Bourbon Police Department, the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department, the Bourbon Fire Department, and Marshall County Coroner William Cleavenger.
Marshall County Coroner released a preliminary cause of death Thursday afternoon following an autopsy. Cady drowned in the crash and it’s unclear exactly what time the accidents happened.
