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Nicole Gonzales and Mary Richards reportingA 62-year-old man is killed in a suspicious car accident near the Snowbird Ski Resort. It's the second fatal accident in this area in the past couple weeks.
The man was the only person in the car, which dropped nearly 200 feet off a cliff at the Snowbird entry #2 parking lot into a creek in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Investigators are trying to figure out how he fell to his death from the above parking lot.
The Salt Lake County sheriff's officials know the name of the man, but they aren't releasing it because they're waiting to notify family members.
The major accident team is still trying to piece together how this all happened, and they will be investigating whether this was a suicide. Sgt. Kris Ownby says, "That's always something we certainly consider when investigating this. Whether or not that's the case or not, I couldn't say at this point."
At 6:45 this morning a Snowbird employee noticed the car flipped over in the creek. Shortly after, Unified Fire Authority officials arrived on scene and found the man dead inside the car.
Investigators aren't sure how long he'd been down there. Detectives found alcohol bottles near the crash, but they say those appear to be old. Investigators were also looking at three rocks piled near where they believe the car went off.
One interesting point officials say is it seems that the car did not just roll off the cliff. Ownby says, "It looks like the vehicle had some momentum to leave the parking lot, doesn't appear the vehicle just rolled off the edge of the parking lot off the edge into the creek."
Investigators are hoping the car contained a crash data recorder that could possibly tell when this all happened.
E-mail: ngonzales @ksl.com
E-mail: mrichards@ksl.com
