Great Barrington — A Housatonic man is dead, and two others — including the driver, whom police say was drunk — are in critical condition after the car they were riding in crashed into a telephone pole on East Street just before 1 a.m. today (April 4), according to Great Barrington Police Chief William Walsh.
Garrett J. Norton, 21, was extricated from the car by the Great Barrington Fire Department and died of his injuries a short time later at Fairview Hospital, according to police. Matthew A. Moriarty of Great Barrington, 20, was taken to Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, then transferred to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
The driver, Kyle S. Bailey, 22, was also transferred to Baystate. Bailey, of Glendale, was arrested and charged with OUI Resulting in Motor Vehicle Homicide; Negligent Operation of a Motor Vehicle; Speeding; Failure to Stay Within Marked Lanes; Open Container of Alcohol in a Motor Vehicle; and OUI Causing Serious Injuries. Bailey is being held on $7,000 bail while in custody at the hospital.
Police say that when they arrived at the scene they found Norton in the front passenger seat, and Moriarty in the backseat, and that all three had “serious injuries.”
All three men were recent graduates of Monument Mountain Regional High School, where Norton and Moriarty, 2012 graduates, played football. Bailey, it appears, is a budding photo-journalist who attends Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire.
Grief-filled posts have already poured into Norton’s Facebook page. Norton is a 2014 graduate of Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y., with a degree from the Automotive Technical Services academic program, according to his page on Merit.com, a networking site.
According to the Keene State College of Journalism television station’s (KSC-TV) website, Bailey is a reporter, though it is unclear what year of school he is in. His profile says that he “is also the photo editor for the Equinox,” Keene State’s weekly student newspaper. His profile also says that last semester, Bailey “spent time interning as a sports photographer for Sports NH online,” and that “Kyle hopes to travel the country to continue to build his extreme sports photography portfolio and find himself a job doing what he loves.” His photography website is www.kylebaileyphoto.com.
The accident isn’t Bailey’s first run-in with the law. A 2011 court log from the 8th Circuit Court in Keene shows that Bailey, then 18, was in “illegal possession of alcohol” on October 15 in Keene, for which he “pleaded guilty, fined $744, $372 to be paid and the remainder to be paid through 37 hours of community service, license revoked for six months.”
The Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis & Reconstruction Section assisted at the scene in Great Barrington as well as troopers from the Lee barracks and the Southern Berkshire Volunteer Ambulance Squad. The accident remains under investigation by the Great Barrington Police Department.
Bailey’s car was the second to hit a telephone pole in Great Barrington last night. At 10 p.m. Friday night Spencer B. Lee of Monterey crashed into a pole on Blue Hill Road. Lee, 30, was arrested for OUI and released on his own recognizance and will appear in Southern Berkshire District Court on Monday.
