Early ‘John Doe’ Probe Left Local Family In A Panic, Fearing Worst

BERLIN — For several hours on Sunday morning, a local family was under the impression a family member was the victim in the fatal pedestrian collision on Route 50 near Route 589, but Maryland State Police investigators said this week they were merely trying to identify the victim and did not intend to wrongly inform the family of the bad news.

Around 2:20 a.m. on Sunday, Stephen Bird, 38, of Madison, N.J., was struck and killed by a vehicle on eastbound Route 50 near its intersection with Route 589. However, Bird was not carrying any identification and when Maryland State Police (MSP) investigators attempted to identify the victim, one of the officers on the scene determined the victim loosely met the description of a local man named Tim Bailey, who works at Wal-Mart nearby and was known to walk back and forth across Route 50.

With a “John Doe” on their hands and a possible match on the victim, MSP troopers began exploring the possibility the victim was Bailey, setting in motion a traumatic sequence of events for the Bailey family who were mistakenly led to believe their brother was the victim in the fatal collision.
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