A Murrayville man was killed in a single-vehicle motorcycle crash yesterday morning in Greene County.
According to the Greene County Sheriff’s Department, 32-year old Robert Stewart, of rural Murrayville, was driving a 2006 Harley Davidson southbound on US 67 when the crash occurred at around 10:30 a.m.
Greene County Sheriff Rob McMillen explains the circumstances that likely led to the accident.
“According to witnesses, he was passing several cars in his direction of southbound travel, and as he was passing, for whatever reason he lost control of the motorcycle and hit the ditch area on the opposite side of the road. Once the motorcycle hit the ditch, it ejected him from the motorcycle and he was found laying in the ditch there with pretty severe injuries,” says McMillen
Stewart was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident. Greene County Ambulance Service treated him at the scene before he was airlifted by Survival Flight to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.
The Greene County Sheriff’s Department will conduct the investigation. McMillen says his agency has a pretty good idea of why Stewart’s motorcycle left the roadway.
“We had enough witnesses on the scene that saw what happened that we have a pretty good understanding of how the accident occurred. We had three witnesses to the accident. There was a northbound vehicle that wasn’t involved in the accident, but as (Stewart) was passing, he may have seen this northbound vehicle. Clearly, that (northbound) vehicle wasn’t at fault in the accident, but I believe that the passing of the southbound vehicles and observing the northbound vehicle probably led to the motorcycle doing some sort of action during the passing that caused it to go out of control,” McMillen explains.
McMillen says the crash caused some minor traffic delays on US 67. He says the roadway was completely shut down for around 30 minutes, and that officers subsequently instructed one-way traffic for another half-hour.
According to McMillen, the hospital pronounced Stewart dead at around 4:45 this morning.