UPDATE

MHP re-traces events of fatal Frenchtown crash

Posted: Sep 19, 2012 9:08 AM by Irina Cates - MTN News
Updated: Sep 19, 2012 9:09 AM

FRENCHTOWN - As friends and family mourn the loss of a Missoula man who went missing after leaving a Frenchtown bar September 7, the Montana Highway Patrol is trying to figure out what happened in the crash that killed him.

The shoulder of Pulp Mill Road became a memorial and for friends of 27-year-old Josh Carter. They sat in silence as they remembered the man who touched each of their lives in some way.

Carter's friend John Bigart said, "Josh was just an amazing young man. He just had an incredible personality, was really a true person-just genuine."

Carter went missing after he left a bar in Frenchtown. On Sept. 17, a farmer came across Carter's wrecked truck.

Carter might have been drunk before the crash, according to the Missoula County Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff's office spokesman Jason Johnson said, "From talking to witnesses that were with Josh that night, is that he was at the Frenchtown Club consuming alcohol for about four hours before he left."

Troopers say Carter started to lose control of his pickup just west of the bridge on Pulp Mill Road and then ping-ponged between guardrails on both side of the road.

Montana Highway Patrol trooper Adam Gane says evidence then shows Carter overcorrected as he came across the bridge.

The pickup rolled down a ditch. He was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected.

The steep embankment and thick brush made Carter and his truck invisible to those driving Pulp Mill Road.

Investigators don't know how fast Carter was going before he crashed or how many times his truck rolled.