Crash victim not discovered for four hours

FHP Master Corporal Peter G. Young informed Historic City News that a 20-year-old Palm Coast man lost his life about 3:30 a.m. New Year’s morning, after he was thrown from his motorcycle — only blocks away from his residence.

Codie Ray Barlow, who lived at 24 Pebble Beach Drive, was traveling northbound on Pacific Drive on a 2007 Honda CBR Racing motorcycle. According to the investigative report, he failed to negotiate the sharp left curve; driving off the roadway onto the east swale and striking a mailbox.

“A neighbor heard the crash at 3:30 a.m. and observed the damaged mailbox from her window,” Young wrote in his report. “She assumed a car struck her neighbors mailbox, because she did not see a vehicle or driver, so she returned to bed.”

The neighbor told investigators that it was not until 7:30 a.m., when she came outside to get her newspaper, that she spotted the victim and his motorcycle.

Barlow was ejected from the motorcycle when he struck the mailbox in front of 57 Pacific Drive. His body came to rest in the front yard of 59 Pacific Drive; his motorcycle suffered an estimated $ 10,000 in damages and landed in the front yard of 61 Pacific Drive. Barlow was pronounced dead at the scene.

Evidence obtained confirmed that speed was a factor in the crash although it will not be known if alcohol or drugs were an additional factor until completion of the postmortem examination of the victim.