
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 7, 1995                   TAG: 9504070060
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                  LENGTH: Medium

MAN LEFT SCENE, FELL TO HIS DEATH, POLICE BELIEVE

City police think that a Radford man whose body was found Thursday morning below a bridge on the bank of Plum Creek probably fell to his death after wrecking his car nearby on U.S. 11 and leaving his vehicle on foot.

Deputy Chief Jonny Butler said officers located the body of 22-year-old Richard J. Strasser of Davis Street around 9:30 a.m. Thursday, after they found no one at the scene during an earlier investigation of the wreck, which apparently happened around 3 a.m. just inside the city limits. Officers said they found the car on its roof, not far from the bridge.

Butler said officers do not consider it especially unusual when a driver of a wrecked car is missing at that hour of the morning. ``We've had a lot of accidents in that area over the years'' where people have left the scene, he said.

A Department of Motor Vehicles license plate check turned up Strasser as the car's owner, but listed an Arlington address, Butler said. After Strasser's wife, Michele, reported him missing around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, police took a second look around the accident site with the help of daylight. They eventually spotted Strasser's body some 60 feet below the bridge on the east bank of Plum Creek and ``not readily visible from the top of the bridge,'' Butler said.

Radford police enlisted the aid of Montgomery County Sheriff's Office deputies to route traffic around the scene on the section of U.S. 11 known as Radford Road.

An autopsy has been scheduled, but Butler said authorities have no evidence of foul play. Butler believes Strasser accidently fell over the waist-high bridge abutment after leaning against the abutment while on his way toward Radford on foot.

Butler said he almost slipped there himself as police, fire and rescue crews converged on the bridge to recover Strasser's body.

Butler said the car did not appear to have been speeding and that Strasser apparently was returning to Radford when the wreck happened. An accident reconstruction team will attempt to fill in the details, Butler said.

by CNB