Driver steps forward in Cody Boyd death
Police await crime lab test results
Hailey
police Capt. Brian McNary hopes DNA tests done on a small amount of blood
taken from the trailer’s right, rear mud flap will positively place the truck at the
scene of Boyd’s death.
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
Police believe they have identified the driver and truck that collided
with and killed 9-year-old Hailey bicyclist Cody Boyd three weeks ago.
Capt. Brian McNary, during a telephone interview Monday, said a
39-year-old man telephoned the Hailey Police Department Thursday to declare that he might
be the driver responsible for Boyd’s death.
Police would not release the name of the driver, but McNary described him
as a 6-foot-3-inch-tall, 200-pound Caucasian.
"I would feel terrible, if we [released the name] and it didn’t
turn out he did it," McNary said. "We would all feel like idiots."
The man, a former Hailey resident who now lives in Shoshone, met with
police voluntarily and without a lawyer at the Hailey police station Friday morning for
about an hour, McNary said.
The interview was informal, so the individual’s legal rights, such as
his right to remain silent, were not read, and no taped or written record was made, McNary
said.
But the driver did write a one-page statement, which McNary declined to
release.
Because the driver said he did not recall hitting Boyd, police said they
will not know for sure if they have the correct person until the state crime lab in
Meridian returns results of DNA tests and other tests the lab is performing on evidence
police collected from the truck. That could take up to two weeks, McNary said.
When the investigation is complete, police said they will submit a report
to the county prosecuting attorney, who will decide whether to press charges against the
driver.
During the interview, the man explained he didn’t come forward
earlier because an eyewitness’s apparently inaccurate account—which he read in
newspaper stories—described the truck as white or tan, according to McNary.
After reading the newspaper stories, the man nevertheless inspected the
rig he was driving but failed to find any sign that he had hit a person, McNary said.
Further, more detailed, newspaper stories and knowledge that police were
investigating the trucking company he worked for caused the driver to finally call,
according to McNary.
Police have zeroed in on a 1989 blue Freightliner, which was pulling two
flatbed trailers. The rig, empty at the time of the fatality, was about 100 feet long with
16 wheels for the trailers alone.
B-Bar Ranch, a Twin Falls-based company, operates the vehicle, and six
others like it, to provide agricultural hauling services, a company spokesperson said
during a telephone interview Monday.
For nearly a week, the two attached trailers have been parked at
Kelly’s Diesel and Gas Repair, a 24-hour roadside trucking service station located on
Interstate 84 about 10 miles east of Twin Falls. A mechanic at the station said B-Bar
ranch uses the parking lot behind Kelly’s as a staging and storage area for its
trucks and trailers. McNary said Monday there is no reason to impound the truck and
trailers because he can easily get any additional evidence from the rig, if needed. He
said he may remove one or more of its tires soon. Already, investigators have taken the
right, rear mud flap. And, they have taken tire imprints by rolling the rig’s tires
over cardboard and butcher paper.
Witness descriptions and forensic evidence lead police to believe it was
the last set of wheels on the right side on the second trailer that ran over Boyd.
That theory supports McNary’s idea that Boyd may have not realized
the truck was pulling a second trailer when he peddled through the intersection.
According to McNary, the driver was scheduled to pick up a load of hay
from Croy Canyon and take it to a dairy in Magic Valley.
Heading north alone, the driver turned right onto Fourth Avenue near the
Hailey airport, then west at Bullion Street, McNary said. After allegedly colliding with
Boyd at Second Avenue at about 8:15 a.m., the driver continued west across Main Street,
according to McNary’s account.
The day after the accident, police identified the manufacturer of the
tread on one of the rig’s tires from an impression left at the scene. Two days after
the accident, police stopped a rig that had a matching tire. From that match, police
identified B-Bar Ranch, and began inspecting all its trucks and trailers.
McNary, on Monday, said he is waiting to see if the state crime lab, or
maybe an FBI lab, can identify not only the tire manufacturer but also match the
individual tire to the impressions taken at the scene.
McNary also hopes DNA tests done on a small amount of blood taken from the
trailer’s right, rear mud flap will positively place the truck at the scene of
Boyd’s death.
Given that the driver said he doesn’t recall the accident, McNary
said he could have some "tough, tough" work ahead of him trying to prove the
match, if both tests fail.
A spokesperson for B-Bar Ranch said the driver quit working for the
company on Tuesday of last week. His resignation may have been influenced by the accident,
the spokesperson said, but it was probably "more about money." Drivers for B-Bar
Ranch earn a percentage based on weigh hauled. "The more they haul, the more they
make," the spokesperson said, and apparently he couldn’t haul enough.
