Wednesday, June 23, 1999
Suicide in vehicle 2nd in Butler this month
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — When a Batavia man crashed his truck into the rear of a parked semi last week, he was committing suicide, Butler County Coroner Dr. Richard P. Burkhardt said Tuesday.
“Not every automobile accident is an accident,” Dr. Burkhardt said.
Dr. Burkhardt ruled that Terry Beagle, 44, died from a crushed chest in the fiery crash.
The ruling marked the second time this month that he ruled someone had used a vehicle to commit suicide — one of the rarest forms of taking one's life, according to statistics.
On June 7, Dr. Burkhardt determined that Mary Jo Koenig, 38, committed suicide May 31 when she drove her minivan 50 feet down an embankment and into the Great Miami River in Hamilton.
According to the Ohio Department of Health, three people committed suicide with motor vehicles in 1997, the most recent year for which statistics are available. And from 1993-97, there was a total of eight such suicides statewide.
Even so, Dr. Burkhardt said he didn't consider two in a row to be alarming. “Two cases don't make a trend,” he said.
In both instances, the victims informed other people about their intentions to commit suicide, Dr. Burkhardt said.
The weekend before his June 16 crash along Interstate 75 in Monroe, Mr. Beagle had made a trip to Chicago, “bidding goodbye to his relatives, and saying he thought he was going to kill himself — and that he would use the company truck to do it,” Dr. Burkhardt said. Mr. Beagle was a driver for Elco Steel Inc. of Dayton.
The investigation showed Mr. Beagle had made at least four previous suicide attempts, according to family members, and was troubled recently because he believed he had cancer, Dr. Burkhardt said. He didn't know whether any physician had confirmed that diagnosis.
Loved ones asked police to check on Mr. Beagle's well-being, but they found no one at home. Two days later, he died in the crash. The driver of the tractor-trailer rig was treated for minor injuries at Middletown Regional Hospital and released.
In Ms. Koenig's case, she told fellow Jaycees at a carnival that she was going to commit suicide, “and she told a friend that she was going to do it with her car,” Dr. Burkhardt said.
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