2 Marines Found Dead After Motorcycle Crash

A broken watch with the hands stopped at 12:20 may have marked the hour that two Marines from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station were fatally hurt early Monday when their motorcycle crashed on Trabuco Road.

The bodies of Cpl. Michael P. Caissey, 27, and Pfc. John W. Hogan Jr., 22, were found by other Marines on their way to work about 6:30 a.m. Monday, California Highway Patrol Officer Aaron Williamson said.

No one spotted the men until daylight because they were thrown into a ditch, Williamson said, conjecturing that they might have been saved if someone had seen them.

“The sad part is that they may have been alive. They may have just lay there dying.”

But Ron Stanzack, supervising deputy coroner, said their injuries were so severe that “they would certainly have died anyway”--even if they had “lived for a little while” after the accident.

Cycle Struck Fence

Caissey and Hogan were southbound on Trabuco Road, south of Irvine Boulevard, when Caissey failed to turn with the curved road and went across 20 feet of dirt into a ditch, Williamson said.

The 1984 Kawasaki 550 motorcycle hit a wire fence and slipped under it, throwing off its riders and leaving them on the other side of the fence, Williamson said. The broken watch belonged to Caissey.

Neither was wearing a helmet. Marines on motorcycles are required to wear helmets on or off the base, said chief investigator Ed Aikey of the station’s police force.

“We’re very strict on that. It’s mandatory,” Aikey said. “Why they weren’t, I don’t know.”

Caissey died of head trauma and Hogan of internal injuries, the coroner’s office reported.

Both men were members of Headquarters and Maintenance Squadron 13, part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Sgt. Pepper Davis said. Caissey, an aircraft metalsmith from Florida, joined the Marines in 1977, left in 1981 and re-enlisted in 1984. He was married. Hogan, a hydraulics mechanic from New York, joined in 1982. He was single.