August Fatal Wreck Caused by Driver Suicide, GBI Says

A Canon man, involved in a wreck on SR17 last month, committed suicide.

That’s according to the Hart County Sheriff’s office, which issued the results of an autopsy by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab on the body of 31-year old Vergil Steven Bennett Jr. of Canon.

Hart County Sheriff’s Investigator Marshall Norton told the Hartwell Sun that Bennett died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound just prior to his truck running off the road the evening of August 19^th on SR17 southbound between Bowersville and Canon.

Bennett’s 1996 Ford pick-up left the road just after 7p, hit a fence and a utility pole without stopping, according to the Georgia State Patrol incident report.  The pick up then crossed a private drive and struck a mailbox before traveling over another private drive and hitting a tree.

A tractor trailer traveling behind the pick up drove into downed power lines, but the driver of the 18-wheeler managed to get out of his cab uninjured.