CRASH DRIVER MAY HAVE BEEN SUICIDE

Blair Man Had Attempted Suicide Shortly Before Fatal Wreck Sunday

RESTRAINED FROM LEAP AT RIVER BRIDGE

Darrell Bracken, an employee of the Kelly Ryan Equipment Co. of Blair, died instantly late Sunday afternoon as his car hurtled into a telephone pole adjacent to Highway 73 north of Blair. The incident happened near the Frank Thompson farm north of the Pleasant View school.

Whether Bracken’s death was accidental or a direct attempt at suicide will probably never be known, but the result was one of the most tangled and thoroughly demolished wrecks ever towed to Blair. Bracken’s body was pinned in the wreck so tightly that torches had to be used to cut away the steel before his body could be removed to an ambulance.

Bracken’s watch was found in a field fifty feet from the wreck.

Several hours prior to the wreck, Bracken had attempted to jump from the Blair bridge, but was prevented from doing so by toll keepers and his wife and 16 yer old son who were accompanying him.

His former wife, Mrs. Nina Bracken of Modale, Iowa and their son Jimmy, 16, gave the following account of events leading to the crash:

Mr. Bracken had gone to Modale, his former home, for the weekend.

Sunday afternoon he appeared at his former wife’s home and asked her and Jimmy to drive him to Blair. Mrs. Bracken agreed to do so.

As Mrs. Bracken started to drive away from the tollhouse on the Blair Bridge, Mr. Bracken jumped out of the auto and scrambled onto the bridge rail.

Mrs. Bracken and Jimmy ran after him. With the aid of the two tollhouse attendants, Alfred Feer and Ernest Tornblad, both of Blair, they prevailed upon him to get back into the auto.

A short time after the car left the bridge, Mr. Bracken said he was going to be sick and asked Mrs. Bracken to stop the auto.

The three got out of the car. Suddenly Mr. Bracken jumped into the auto, clashed the engine into gear and drove off, leaving the other two standing in the road.

Mrs. Bracken told Sheriff Harold Imrie of Logan, Iowa, her brother-in-law, that Mr. Bracken called back to her and Jimmy:

“The next time you see me I’ll be dead.”

Mrs. Bracken and Jimmy walked back to the tollhouse. From there they called Sheriff Imrie. The toll keepers phoned Sheriff Fick.

The crash occurred soon after a search was started for Mr. Bracken.

He had driven through Blair unnoticed. Before the crash he had driven past the Blair Municipal Airport on Highway 73 where more than a thousand persons were attending a program.

State Safety Patrolmen who were directing traffic at the airport said they noted no speeders. Mr. Bracken apparently drove past the airport at normal speed.

Mr. Bracken had lived at Blair since he and his wife had separated.

Other survivors: daughter Janice of Modale; sister, Mrs. Dorothy Gamet of Mondamin, Iowa; brother, Milo of Glenwood, Iowa.

The body was taken to the hardy Funeral Home at Missouri Valley, Iowa.

~~~Obituaries courtesy of the Nebraska Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair, Nebraska Public Library~~~

Find a Grave Memorial #137713475