A Colorado man whose phone contained searches for “cliffs near me” before his pickup plunged off a Wyoming mountain road with his wife inside is now wanted in Wyoming for first-degree murder.
As of Tuesday morning, Forrest Jay Wood, 46, was being held in the Larimer County Detention Center on a state warrant out of Carbon County.
Wood was driving the Chevrolet Silverado when it left French Creek Road near Saratoga on June 3. Investigators say the truck accelerated to 57 mph without braking before going over the edge.
His wife, 44-year-old Virginia Lynne Wood, survived the initial crash but needed immediate medical help, Carbon County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Joel Robertson wrote in an arrest affidavit.
The couple wouldn’t be found for two more days.
By then, Virginia was dead beneath a bush downhill from the truck. Wood was alive farther down the slope.
His phone showed activity after the crash, but investigators found no calls for help, Robertson wrote.
When investigators later asked Wood why the truck’s data showed 99% throttle before the crash, he couldn’t explain it.
“I don't know we were happy. I don't know. I really don't know. I'm sorry. I wish I knew,” Robertson quoted him as saying.
No Skid Marks?
The first call for help came June 5, after a couple leaving their cabin near French Creek spotted the wreck.
They were driving toward the overlook when the woman noticed the Woods’ pickup in the sunlight below the road. They tried to reach it, but the terrain was too steep. Instead, they drove to Ryan Park to find cellphone service and call 911.
Robertson was patrolling Saratoga when he got the call. He met the couple at the French Creek turnoff and followed them about 9.2 miles to the crash site.
There were tracks where the truck left the road, but nothing suggesting the driver had tried to stop, he wrote.
“I did not observe any skid marks or tire impressions on the roadway or shoulder indicating braking or loss of control,” Robertson wrote.
The Silverado sat about 75 yards below the road, with debris tracing its path through rocks and boulders.
Its driver’s door was open. A suitcase and a shoe lay nearby. The airbags had deployed, but the truck was empty.
Robertson found the rear seat folded up, an open suitcase stained with blood and a cooler containing Miller Lite. There was a large amount of blood on the passenger-side airbag, and the windshield on that side was shattered and pushed partly outward.
An open beer can sat in the cup holder closest to the driver.
Then the truck shifted beneath Robertson, and he got out.
Dispatch soon relayed that the pickup’s occupants had been reported missing. Their phones had last registered in the area, and family members had been trying to find them through the location-sharing app Life360.
Movement In The Brush
As firefighters, search and rescue crews and more deputies arrived, Robertson and another deputy picked their way along the hillside.
From a rock formation above the wreck, the deputy spotted something beneath a bush.
It was Virginia.
She was roughly 50 yards downhill from the truck, with a significant injury above her eyes. She was dead, Robertson wrote, and there were no drag marks leading to her body.
The deputies kept looking for Wood. They searched down to the bottom of the hill, then climbed back up without finding him.
An EMS worker eventually noticed movement in the bushes. He looked closer, saw a man moving slightly and went over to check him for injuries.
The worker later told Robertson that Wood identified himself as the driver and the woman as his passenger.
But when Robertson reached him, Wood gave a different account.
He first said two other men had been in the truck, then said there was only one. Asked where that man was, he pointed west and said he was “over there in his house.”
Wood thought he was in Loveland, Colorado. He couldn’t identify the woman who had been with him and denied she was his wife, Robertson wrote.
“I then determined that Defendant was either not being honest or was very disoriented and I did not ask him any other questions,” the detective wrote.
Rescuers carried Wood to an ambulance at the bottom of the canyon. He was taken to Saratoga to be flown to Casper.
'Are You OK'
Back above the wreck, two young men approached Robertson.
They wanted to know whether he had found their mother.
Robertson showed them the phones recovered from the hillside. One displayed a photo of Virginia and Wood together. The men identified the woman as their mother.
Her sons said the couple had been having marital problems and had gone away together to work on their marriage. They were supposed to be home the evening of June 3.
Nobody had heard from them.
Investigators began piecing together the trip through surveillance footage and conversations with family members and people close to Virginia.
A longtime friend in California told deputies she had been talking about separation and divorce. The two women spoke or texted daily, and they had worked out a possible arrangement for Virginia to stay with her.
Virginia could live rent-free, keep working and save money. The friend said she hoped to leave June 16 and had discussed a one-way ticket.
Talking about the move was the happiest the friend had seen Virginia in more than two months.
Their last exchange was June 3. The next morning, the friend sent messages but heard nothing back.
One asked, “are you OK.”
Virginia never answered.
Dancing, Holding Hands
Surveillance footage captured at a Fort Collins gas station on the day of the crash shows Wood fueling the pickup. Virginia stepped out of the passenger side, and they met behind the truck, took each other’s hands and danced, Robertson wrote.
Wood hugged her. They walked into the store smiling and holding hands, and he held the door for her.
They also stopped at a liquor store, buying a 12-pack of Miller Lite, Sprite and liquor. Virginia had her seat belt on when they drove away.
A Loveland detective told investigators neither appeared distressed in the footage he reviewed. He also found no prior Loveland police contacts involving domestic violence or disturbances between them, and no divorce filing in the court system he checked.
Wood agreed to meet investigators July 6 at the Carbon County courthouse. Robertson told him he wasn’t under arrest and was free to leave.
Wood said he had returned June 2 from a 10-day business trip. He and Virginia got a hotel room in Loveland to talk privately about their marriage, then decided to take a drive into the Wyoming mountains the next day.
He was from Laramie, he told investigators, and knew the French Creek area from hunting.
On the drive through Laramie and Centennial, they talked about family and their relationship and listened to music. Virginia turned up the songs she liked, he said.
They stopped at a French Creek Road pullout he called the “Spur,” where Wood said they talked for roughly an hour and a half to two hours. He said he drank one beer and believed Virginia had three or four.
Wood called it “the best conversation they had in three months.”
As daylight faded, they started driving again. He said he remembered them laughing and then he woke up in a hospital.
Wood said he recalled little of the rescue beyond briefly being in a helicopter. He told Robertson he had suffered severe head trauma and injuries to his kidneys and liver.
He couldn’t explain what caused the crash.
Five Seconds Before Impact
The pickup’s recorded data gave investigators a closer look at the moments before it left the road.
Five seconds before the first impact, it was traveling 44 mph with the throttle at 99%, Wyoming Highway Patrol Lt. Jason Sawdon found in an analysis.
The truck accelerated to 57 mph roughly 1.5 seconds before impact. The accelerator was released in the final second. The brakes stayed off throughout the recording.
As Forest Service Road 225 curved left, the Silverado went off the right side and became airborne. It hit an old two-track road more than 13 feet below the roadway, gouging the ground with its front undercarriage before continuing downhill.
The first impact deployed airbags and seat-belt restraints. Both front seats registered occupants wearing seat belts.
Investigators identified five major ground impacts, including a collision with a boulder. The truck’s rollover sensors activated, but the physical evidence showed it stayed upright rather than rolling over, the affidavit says.
During Wood’s July interview, investigators asked him about the acceleration. Robertson also pointed out the lack of braking or signs that he had turned to avoid the crash.
Wood repeatedly said he didn’t know why the truck accelerated.
He eventually said he didn’t want to talk anymore and asked for an attorney. The interview ended.
‘Am I Going To Die Soon’
Investigators obtained a warrant and examined three phones found at the scene: Wood’s personal and work iPhones and Virginia’s Samsung.
Wood’s phone showed searches made before the crash for “cliffs near me,” “scenic overlook near me” and “am i going to die soon.”
There were also searches for “what type of life insurance do I have through work” and, on June 3, “do term life insurances have suicide clauses.”
The searches included the dangers of the prescription drug hydroxyzine and, on June 3, ketamine. Virginia’s toxicology results showed alcohol but no other intoxicants, the affidavit says.
Other searches that day concerned cars that had gone off cliffs near Laramie, Medicine Bow and Estes Park.
GPS information from Wood’s phone also helped investigators retrace the drive along French Creek Road.
The truck appeared to have passed the pullout and traveled to the area where it later left the road, then turned around and returned to the pullout. It stayed there about 2½ hours before heading to the crash site, Robertson wrote.
Wood had told investigators about stopping to talk, but he hadn’t mentioned the earlier trip to the crash area and back.
His personal phone was powered on from June 3 until it was recovered June 5. Robertson found information indicating it had been accessed June 4, but no calls or attempted calls after the morning of June 3.
His work phone also showed no outgoing calls or attempts after the morning of June 3.
What Happened Afterward?
The evidence didn’t support either person being thrown from the truck, the affidavit says. Both seat belts showed signs of use, and Virginia had injuries consistent with wearing hers.
Yet she was found downhill beneath a bush, without drag marks leading to her.
Her socks weren't visibly covered in the dirt and debris Robertson would have expected if she had walked there.
“Instead, it is likely that Decedent was carried to the area where her body was found,” he wrote.
The passenger seat was reclined, although Wood had described Virginia sitting up and talking during the drive.
Blood patterns led Robertson to conclude someone had folded up the rear seat after the crash. A suitcase appeared to have been moved and opened afterward.
Wood was wearing a sweater when rescuers found him. Surveillance had last shown him in a T-shirt and jeans, Robertson wrote.
Virginia’s autopsy documented multiple broken ribs and extensive chest injuries. Forensic pathologist Dr. Randall E. Frost concluded she most likely died from blunt-force injuries to her torso from the crash.
Carbon County Coroner Brittany Nyman classified her death as a homicide.
Nyman told investigators Virginia’s injuries would not have killed her instantly. Both lungs had collapsed, and she would have suffocated within a couple of hours without treatment. She would have been in significant pain, the affidavit says.
She “would have survived the initial crash but would have needed immediate medical care to survive" wrote Robertson,.
Roads ran above and below the wreck and could have been reached to seek help, he wrote. Neither Virginia nor Wood was found on or near one.
Arrested In Colorado
Fort Collins police arrested Wood at 9:43 a.m. Tuesday near Cornerstone Drive and Kechter Road, a Larimer County booking report shows.
The arrest came a day after charges and an arrest warrant were filed in Carbon County.
Wood faces one count of first-degree murder or, alternatively, second-degree murder, along with charges of failing to render aid and having an open container.
He is being held in the Larimer County jail on the Carbon County warrant.
The jail roster listed no bond set Tuesday afternoon.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
