Appomattox County wreck victim ID’d

By Dave Thompson

Published: May 7, 2008

Aleth Harrison Mays Jr., the most recent victim in a rash of area traffic fatalities, died Tuesday night due to circumstances that could have been avoided, according to Virginia State Police.

Sgt. David Cooper said alcohol and speed were both factors in the Appomattox County wreck that killed the 25-year-old Mays, of Woodland Drive in Lynchburg. Earlier reports said Mays was from Madison Heights.

Mays was not wearing his seatbelt and was thrown from the car when it overturned on Paradise Road, near Concord.

With four fatal accidents in Lynchburg’s surrounding counties since May 1, Cooper said Wednesday that the State Police’s Third Division has now worked six more fatalities this year than at the same point in 2007.

That division covers 15 counties, stretching from Augusta and Greene Counties south to Mecklenburg and Halifax Counties.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Cooper’s division had seen 40 traffic-related deaths, up from 34 at that time last year.

“They (drivers) need to pay heed to our highway safety challenge,” he said, referring to the State Police’s fivefold plan for reducing fatalities.

The recommendations: buckle up, avoid distractions, share the road, drive drug-free and alcohol-free, and obey speed limits.

Of the four killed since Thursday, three were not wearing seatbelts, two were going too fast, and one had been drinking.

Jonathan O’Neal St. John (seatbelt, speed), 33, and Timothy Ervin Barlow (seatbelt), 40, both died in wrecks off U.S. 501 near Naruna on Thursday.

James Lee Holmes, 16, of Appomattox died in a wreck on U.S. 460 near Concord on Saturday. Police believe his brother, Charles Holmes, fell asleep at the wheel.

Despite the upswing in fatalities for Cooper’s division, he said the state as a whole is in better shape, at 271 fatalities, than it was at this point last year, with 302.

He said there was no specific pattern to explain the recent outbreak of fatalities, just that wrecks sometimes “come in spells.”