A man found dead in a car off a Tracy roadway this weekend was confirmed to be a missing Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority supervisor, authorities said.
Ray Halsell, 64, was last seen leaving the agency’s San Jose office Thursday afternoon. His disappearance prompted about 40 friends, relatives and co-workers of the 15-year VTA veteran to organize a search that lasted into Saturday.
That afternoon, Tracy police found an overturned 2001 green Honda Accord in a ditch off Coral Hollow Road near Interstate 580 and about two miles south of Tracy, where he lived. They found a man’s body inside, and the California Highway Patrol, which took over the investigation, confirmed Monday that it was Halsell.
CHP Officer Adam Shelton said an investigation suggests Halsell was northbound at an unknown speed and failed to take a leftward curve, instead driving onto the right shoulder and hitting a dirt mound. The impact sent his car across both directions of traffic and off the opposite shoulder, where it went down an embankment, clipped a barbed-wire fence and overturned in a creek about 100 feet from the roadway.
Shelton said the spot where the car was found was shrouded in tall reeds and not visible from the roadway, partly explaining the delay in its discovery.
Halsell’s wife of 36 years, Sheila Halsell, told this newspaper Saturday that her husband suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure but had left his medications at home on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what caused Halsell’s death.
Contact Robert Salonga at 408-920-5002. Follow him at Twitter.com/robertsalonga.
