Family, friends and fellow Marines will gather today to remember an SIUC student who was killed after his motorcycle collided with a van Friday morning.
Bradley Owings, 24, was traveling west on Illinois Route 13 at a high speed when he ran a red light and crashed into a van turning left onto Reed Station Road, according to reports from the Carbondale Police Department and the Jackson County Coroner. The driver of the van, a 77-year-old Carbondale resident, was not injured and did not receive any citations, according to Carbondale police.
Shortly before the accident, Owing's motorcycle was clocked at 78 miles per hour at the intersection of Route 13 and Briggs Road, and roughly 0.5 miles later at 132 miles per hour at the intersection of Route 13 and Samuel Road, according to the Williamson County Sheriff's Department.
The collision occurred roughly 6.4 miles west of where the motorcycle was clocked at 132 miles per hour, near the Holiday Inn and Golden Corral restaurant in Carbondale.
Jackson County Coroner Tom Kupferer said Owings was pronounced dead on the scene because of head, neck and chest trauma. He said speed was a factor.
There were no visible signs of anything that would have obstructed Owing's vision, Kupferer said, and toxicology results are expected within four to six weeks.
After returning from three tours in Iraq, Owings registered as a freshman at SIUC in May, according to the Office of Records and Registration. His brother, Richie Owings, said he hoped to major in criminal law with the desire to go into law enforcement.
Richie Owings said he would remember his brother as a patriot whose support for the country never wavered after his time in Iraq.
"He was actually thinking about possibly re-enlisting again. He liked it," Owings said. "He didn't like being away from his family, but he did like the Marines a lot."
Bradley Owings decided to enlist to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, who was also a Marine, his brother said. He was stationed out of Jacksonville, N.C.
Owings is set to receive a full military funeral at 11 a.m. today at the Pyatt Funeral Home in Pinckneyville, a city roughly 30 miles northwest of Carbondale where Owings was born and raised. He will be buried in his uniform, his brother said.
Richie Owings described his brother as a stand-up guy who was always willing to help others.
He loved his two nieces, ages 5 and 9, his brother said, and would often babysit them at their home in Pinckneyville.
"He'd come over and spend all day with them, take them to the park. He loved his nieces," he said.
Any donations in Bradley Owing's name should be made to the American Heart Association or the Lupus Foundation of America, Richie Owings said. He said his brother would have appreciated the charities because their father died of lupus in June 1995.
Sean McGahan can be reached at
536-3311 ext. 274
or mcgahan@siu.edu.
