Autopsy: Mabry's death ruled an accident

By James R. Campbell

Nevada Daily Mail

The death of an 86-year-old Nevada man whose body was found at the bottom of a 35-foot embankment south of town last Friday has been ruled an accident.

Robert Herrick "Bob" Mabry went off Route BB on his bicycle about a mile from his home and suffered a skull fracture when his head struck a rock, Vernon County Coroner David Ferry reported Wednesday.

Referring to the results of an autopsy performed Tuesday at Southwest Missouri Forensics in Springfield, Ferry said, "There is a line of large rocks that was placed to prevent washing and support the embankment.

"Mr. Mabry most likely hit a rock because the pathologist related to me that he suffered an injury to the front of his head. He had driven once upon a time, but he'd biked for quite a few years now. He lived the way he wanted to live, not the way everybody wanted him to.

"We have no idea why he went off the road. It was a single, solitary accident involving himself only. The bike was not damaged."

Vernon County Sher-iff's Office Investigator Steve Schlup said the accident didn't happen the same day that Mabry's body was discovered.

"We don't know which way he was going, but his house is on the east side of the road and he went off the east side," the deputy said Wednesday, noting that the embankment where the accident occurred slopes at a grade of 40 to 60 degrees.

"There is no indication whatsoever of what caused him to leave the roadway. We got the call at mid-morning on the 30th. I'm not real sure what the timeline was, but it did not happen that day.

"A citizen had been told a bike was down there and he went to look and found Mr. Mabry," Schlup said.

Mabry's funeral will be at 10:30 a.m., today, at Ferry Funeral Home. Interment with military honors will be at Moore Cemetery, Nevada.