This just in from St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office: On Feb. 4 at approximately 2:59 p.m., a 1994 Ford Explorer driven by Matthew Franklin Cooper, 20 of Cobb Island, was traveling northbound on Mechanicsville Road in the area of Harrow Hills Court.  Cooper failed to negotiate a curve, struck a guardrail went airborne and struck a tree down a bank.  The St. Mary’s County Sheriff's Office Collision Reconstruction Team is currently conducting the investigation.  Speed and driver error are considered to be the primary contributing factors in this collision and alcohol is not.
 
Anyone with information or who may have witnessed this collision is asked to contact DFC. Mike George at (301) 475-4200 ext. 2269.

At approximately 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 4 St. Mary's dispatched units to respond to a single vehicle rollover in the area of Harrow Hill Ct. & Browns Way on Mechanicsville Road in Chaptico. Police, Fire and EMS arrived on the scene to discover a victim trapped inside a Ford Explorer which had left the road and flipped into the woods.

Police then recognized the vehicle as one they had been searching for previously because of reported reckless and dangerous behavior. After Trooper 7 arrived it was determined that the trapped victim was dead and the accident reconstruction team was called in to investigate.

TBN will provide more details as they are released by authorities when the results of the investigation are released.