SAN ANTONIO – It appears Connor Neckar, 20, may have been speeding just before the early morning crash on Bulverde Road that killed him and injured his passenger, Timothy Smith, 19, according to Bexar County sheriff's investigators.
Detective Louis Antu said Neckar was behind the wheel when his pickup went out of control on Bulverde Road, just south of Wilderness Oak, broke through a guardrail and rolled off a bridge. Neckar was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene.
Antu said Smith was able to "walk away" after the 4 a.m. crash Friday. However, at his home later, his sister, Jessie, said Smith had suffered a head injury and had to be admitted to a hospital.
"I'm kind of speechless. It hasn't even hit me yet," said Jessie Smith. "(Neckar) was always around the house with my brother, always having a good time, always laughing and smiling."
She said she had just spent yesterday evening with her brother and his best friend, clowning around in their home. Hours later, she heard the news that Neckar had died. Her brother, she said, still isn't aware of it.
"When he comes out of this, he's probably going to be messed up for a really long time, thinking about it," Jessie Smith said.
Investigators, meanwhile, are attempting to determine what caused the crash. They spent hours at the scene Friday morning, re-constructing the accident.
"Speed is obviously a factor, if you look at the vehicle and how far it flew once it went off the bridge," Antu said.
Debris from the crash covered an area about the length of two football fields. In the middle of it, investigators had spray-painted a circle around a cluster of unopened beer cans. A tow truck driver retrieving the wrecked vehicle picked up several other cans along with a red plastic cooler.
Antu, however, said he could not speculate about whether Neckar and Timothy Smith had been drinking.
"We have our investigators out here," he said. "They really can't make a determination on alcohol until we get the toxicology report back from the medical examiner's office."
Antu said detectives eventually will turn over the results of their investigation to the district attorney's office.