Fatal accident raises questions

WASILLA — A statewide search is underway in Montana for a vehicle involved in an early morning hit-and-run accident on Interstate 90 Monday that killed an 81-year-old Wasilla man.

Carol Bedford, 73, said her husband Elgie Bedford was driving his Ford Taurus from Alaska to Paris, Texas, to visit family for a few months when he was struck and killed while walking on the highway Sept. 30.

“He was a good man who died doing what he wanted to do,” Bedford said. “How he died is not important.”

The story of the Wasilla father, grandfather and great-grandfather’s death made national news this week after law enforcement first worked to identify the person and then began a manhunt for the driver in the fatal hit and run.

Bedford said she’s had calls from family around the country grieving for their lost brother, father and grandfather, but who’ve been further traumatized by the graphic details included.

“The family is very upset about how its been handled nationally,” Bedford said.

She said breaking the news to her 5-year-old autistic grandson was hard enough, but now the boy must also be shielded from the graphic coverage of his grandfather’s death.

“There are actually family members out there who love that man,” Bedford said. “He’s a real man.”

She said the story has been told by the Associated Press and other news outlets as if it was a scripted TV drama instead of a real man — a husband, father, brother, uncle and grandfather — with a grieving family.

“The reality is when it’s your loved one, you don’t want to see that,” Bedford said.

Details a mystery

Bedford learned the news of her husband’s death when Wasilla police officers came to her house on Monday.

She said she knows her husband was walking near Mile 376 on Interstate 90 between Big Timber and Greycliff early Monday morning when a vehicle struck him and he died instantly.

Bedford said law enforcement officers from Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s Office and Montana Highway Patrol are continuing to investigate the circumstances that led to Elgie’s death.

But many of the details remain a mystery, Bedford said.

“We don’t know why he was walking on the road,” she said. “We do know he was hit on the highway and died instantly.”

Bedford said the vehicle police are looking for likely sustained severe front-end damage in the hit and run.

As the days pass, the family is learning more details about the circumstances leading up to the accident.

Bedford said the car Elgie was driving was located about a mile from where he was struck. The car had veered off the roadway, into the ditch and drove along the fence line for a distance — seemingly at a slow speed, she said.

She said no one knows what caused his car to leave the road, but it seems that he climbed out and began to walk for help when he was hit and killed in morning traffic.

A very special guy

The Bedfords married seven years ago after their spouses died and their 12 children — each had six children — were grown and gone.

“We’re lucky. We have two families,” she said.

Elgie was making his annual trek to the Paris, Texas, area where his children and other extended family live. She said they made the drive together Outside twice a year before her arthritis limited her travel.

“The reason he went every year was to meet the new grandchildren and say hello to his own children,” Bedford said.

Elgie was a pilot and a career military man who retired from the Air Force as a Master Sergeant after more than 20 years of service.

“He refused to go through airport security,” Bedford said of why they opted to spend eight to 10 days making the drive from Alaska to Texas every year.

She said she tried to talk him out of the trip this year, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

Elgie was born and raised in the Atlanta, Ga., area and entered the military there. She said he was stationed in Alaska during his military service and stayed.

She came to Alaska from Seattle, Wash., in 1956 with her mother and siblings and the family moved to Wasilla in 1957.

The couple met when he came into her office many years ago, she said. They were friends for several years before deciding to tie the knot.

Bedford is flying to Texas for a funeral service there with full military honors. And two of Elgie’s sons are driving from Texas to Montana now to bring home his ashes, the Taurus and other possessions, she said.

No services are planned in Alaska, but an obituary will be printed in a future issue of the Frontiersman.

“Right now it’s just a tragic accident, Bedford said. “He was a very special guy.”

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.