A Quick Death in Disputed Crash?

A preliminary autopsy determined that a UC Irvine student whose body was found more than 10 hours after Riverside County sheriff’s deputies left the scene of a car crash had died “at or very near the time of impact,” before the deputies arrived, sheriff’s officials said Wednesday.

The body of James Walsh was found by his parents, who said they had to contact a tow truck company to find out that their son’s car had crashed into a ditch near Norco early Sunday. Rick and Jeannette Walsh of Corona said they found their son’s body in the brush less than 15 feet from the site of the crash.

According to a Sheriff’s Department statement released Wednesday afternoon, James Walsh died of blunt-force trauma to the head when his car flipped.

Sheriff’s officials are conducting an investigation to determine why the deputies failed to find Walsh’s body. Officials are also considering policy changes about contacting the registered owners of vehicles involved in crashes, said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Earl Quinata.

To avoid a conflict of interest and ensure an independent investigation, the autopsy was conducted by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office at the request of Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner Bob Doyle.

Jeannette Walsh said the way the situation was handled by the Sheriff’s Department after the accident was “unacceptable.”

“They didn’t even put out any effort,” she said. “They didn’t call us; they didn’t do much.”

The preliminary investigation indicated that the car veered off the road and flipped. James Walsh was ejected through the driver’s window, Quinata said. The cause of the crash was still under investigation, he said.

At 1:17 a.m., a passerby called 911 to report the accident, Quinata said. Two deputies and a community service officer arrived at the scene five minutes after the call and found the 2001 Oldsmobile Alero upright in a ditch near the road, he said.

Deputies checked the area immediately surrounding the car, and the road, for anyone who might have been walking away from the accident, Quinata said.

After investigating for a couple of hours, deputies left the scene, he said.

But Rick Walsh said Tuesday that the tow truck operator who removed their son’s car Sunday morning told him that when he left the scene about 2 a.m., less than an hour after deputies arrived, the two deputies were wrapping up the paperwork and preparing to leave.

“It didn’t take that much looking,” Rick Walsh said. “There was a trail of things from the car” leading to the body.

Quinata said protocol did not require deputies to immediately notify the registered owner -- in this case, the parents -- when an accident occurred, a policy that was now being reviewed.

“I’m hoping I’m going to find his cellphone ... some clue of where he was,” Rick Walsh said.

They found a debris trail. They picked up CDs, pictures from his wallet and glass.

At the end of the trail they found their son cold and bruised, lying face down in plain sight with his driver’s license mysteriously placed on his back, Rick Walsh said.

The Walshes called 911, which would soon bring deputies back to the scene, and a passerby who was a nurse stopped and examined James Walsh’s body but did not detect a pulse.

Sheriff’s investigators are trying to determine how the driver’s license ended up on top of the body, Quinata said.

On Wednesday, friends stopped by the crash scene to mourn the loss of a young man whose passions included soccer, bodysurfing and playing poker with his brothers Christopher, 12, and Tim, 15.

Tim beamed proudly, wearing his brother’s letterman jacket Tuesday. “He said his goal in life was to see the turn of the next century,” Tim said.

A computer engineering major and member of the UC Irvine track team, James Walsh commuted to school in the Alero.

Their son also recently volunteered to coach the track team at his alma mater, Ayala High School, said Jeannette Walsh.

“As we are finding out now, he touched so many lives, more than we could have imagined. I don’t know if he knew how many lives he touched,” she said.