By Wayne Gates
Managing editor
The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating the death of a bicyclist on Bloomrose Road in northern Brown County.
Investigators discovered the body of 44-year-old Timothy Woods of Williamsburg in the water of Fourmile Creek.
According to a press release from the OSHP, at 3:34 P.M. on Aug. 8, a 911 caller to the Brown County Communication Center reported that he had discovered Woods’ body and bicycle in the creek bed, while he was walking along Bloomrose Road.
OSHP said Woods was traveling downhill on a bicycle around 1 a.m. and began to negotiate a right-hand curve, when he traveled off the left side of the roadway and struck a guardrail end. Woods was ejected when the bicycle overturned, both coming to rest in a creek bed.
He was pronounced dead at the scene by Brown County Coroner, Judith Varnau. The cause and manner of Woods’ death is pending investigation by the OHP and an autopsy. Drug and alcohol analysis will later be completed as a part of the coroner’s investigation, Varnau said in an email.
The preliminary crash investigation indicates that alcohol is suspected, as reported by those that last saw Woods prior to the crash. Woods was not wearing a helmet when the crash occurred. Bloomrose Road was closed for approximately three hours, according to the OSHP.
Assisting at the crash scene were the Brown County Sheriff’s Department, Coroner’s Office and Prosecutor’s Office, Mount Orab Fire and Emergency Medical Services and the OSHP’s Reconstruction Unit and Office of Investigative Services.