The Curse of The Eyes
 
Update 8/23/07:  Solved by Val the Nerdy Net Sleuth

Road:                        Pearblossom Hwy southbound at the entrance to the 14 Fwy North  
Location:                  Palmdale, CA

Victim:                 
      Jesse Paul Eye
Date of Accident:   
2/9/99

Inscription:              Jesse Paul Eye           7/29/80                       2/9/99”  Robert Eye    02/02/2002  Love ya, Bober Eye for life”

Age:                                 18

Description:            This is a large, well-crafted white cross.  The victim's name and stats are etched into the wood and painted gold.  It is a beautiful, but painful cross to see.  Fade flowers and concrete blocks from a nearby construction site lie at its base.  Mardi Gras beads drape from the cross.  A heart rendering message from the victim's grandfather Robert is shakily written in black ink on the side of the cross.

 

Analysis:                 Thanks to Val the Nerdy Net Sleuth, here's the tragic scoop on this accident and the horrible luck of the Eye Family:

 

According to Val:         

"This one is a doozie, because damn, is it ever tragic. I really feel for this family ... they have had their share of bad luck, or at least, their sons have!

Next I move on to the case (formerly) known as  "Grandpa's Favorite" aka "Jesse Paul Eye".  Jesse was an 18 year old who obviously grew up with a need for speed. You couldn't blame him really, it seems to run in his blood. His father, several uncles, and his older brother were all into the racing scene, and he too had aspirations of becoming a race car driver. But that dream abruptly ended during the accident that left this white cross behind. His older brother was with him in the car that night. Eye was driving a 1978 Pontiac Firebird.

Now, here's where things get grainy. His family has stated several times that the accident was caused by a hit-and-run. Officialy however, there is a different story. According to official accident reports from the California Highway Patrol, Eye came up a curved off-ramp at a whopping 60 MPH. The excessive speed mixed in with the fact the road was recently wet from rain cause the Firebird to slide off the northbound Antelope Valley Freeway, flipping the car several times, rolling it into an embankment. Jesse was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the vehicle and was killed when after the ejection he was crushed by his own rolling automobile.

Though several family members claim this was a hit-and-run, both the official highway patrol report and the Fatal Highway Accident Report from the Department of Transportation list it as NOT a hit-and-run. The official report itself can be seen here:

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/query/acc99.cfm?year=1999&datasource=fars1999&istatenum=6&icasenum=235

Now here's where the tragic story gets even sadder. Jesse has two older brothers, James and Matt Eye. Though I am uncertain as to which brother was with him that night on February 9th where Jesse met his end, I can tell you, the other two brothers haven't had it easy.

Matt Eye, like Jesse, was raised on racing. An avid BMX and Mountain Bike Racer himself, he met his end shortly after Jesse did at 1:30 am on January 31, 2004 in an auto accident while he was driving a truck full of (what else?) racing parts when he was hit by a semi. Matt was trying to rebuild a 1967 Chevy pickup in his brother's memory. The pickup belonged to Jesse, but Jesse died before he was done restoring it. Matt died before finishing it as well.

Now his other older brother, James Bodie Eye - has had his share of bad luck too. I wonder if that shaky writing on Jesse's cross was indeed his Grampa's as you thought? While that still is a possibility, I think that may have been left by James. When James was a kid in 1999, he was doing flips from a trampoline into an above ground pool during which he had an accident which broke his neck along the fifth vertebrate and it left him partially paralyzed. He writes by using a pen in between his teeth; hence why I think the shaky writing may be his.

Maybe there is a white cross for Matt as well that you could add to this tragic story of racing brothers...? If you want to know where that accident took place and the location of it I'm sure I could find it with some digging. Just ask and I'll look if you'd like.

Either way, it seems this family has been cursed with some bad luck. Oh, and Matt has a website about his death which I came up across if you want a peek:

www.matteye.com

Until next case!,

Valerie the "Nerdy Net Sleuth"

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