WAYNE CO.—The death of a state trooper’s wife has left a cloud of confusion in its wake, as there are little to no answers as to why and how the woman ended up where she was that she drowned in the early morning hours of Friday, December 27.
Jennifer Murbarger, 42, of Fairfield, was the victim of apparent hypothermia after her car went off in backwaters of the Elm River Creek where it passes through north Jasper Township.
Official reports incomplete
Official reports indicate that Murbarger, wife of ISP officer Jayson Murbarger, called her husband from her cell phone in the early morning hours of that date to report that she was stranded in backwater. However, she could not give her exact location, as she told him she “didn’t know” where she was precisely.
Reports continued that instead of staying with her car, she apparently tried to walk out of the backwaters, but was overcome by the cold water.
When there was no response from her upon subsequent attempts, a rescue effort was made that included a state police airplane outfitted with FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared, in order to pick up heat signatures), which found Murbarger’s body beneath ice not far from her stranded vehicle, this occurring in the hours between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.
Her body was ultimately recovered and taken to Fairfield Memorial Hospital, where Murbarger was pronounced dead at 8:45.
Also, incorrect
It appeared, however, that that’s as far as local media was willing to look into it.
The basics of the matter were even delivered incorrectly (the backwater wasn’t from the Little Wabash River, which was considerably east of the location of the incident), and the exact location where Murbarger’s vehicle was actually found was never given, in what appeared to be a hastily-thrown-together brief covering the event that could have gone a long way toward ISP’s campaign of “turn around, don’t drown” in floodwaters that were occurring following first a massive snowfall at the beginning of the month, then a huge amount of rain that melted it all off.
Why the coverage was scant, therefore, is the question of the day, and answers to that and other hard questions aren’t as forthcoming as they should be.
A look at the details could possibly give a hint, however, as to why and how the tragedy occurred.
Description of location
According to Wayne County Sheriff Mike Everett, Murbarger’s vehicle was found on County Road 1270 North, almost where it “T”s with County Road 2400 East; on the west side of 2400 East is Jasper Township; on the east side is Massilon Township. County Road 2400 East is the mostly-blacktop (but in some places gravel) stretch known as Buggerville Road. Buggerville Road runs from Highway 15 to the south, all the way up into the Elm River bottoms south of the 161 Extension between Cisne and the defunct village of Enterprise in more northern Wayne County.
Road 1270 North is currently shown on some maps as 1250 North, as the mapping system in Wayne County is still being tweaked. The location where Murbarger’s car was found was on 1270 in a location just south of a copse of woods, almost to the T with Buggerville Road. The vehicle, Everett said, was 300-400 yards out into the floodwaters, which usually run through the woods and into the farm field to the south of 1270 N when the Elm River and its drainage ditches are backed up.
The car, Everett said, still had wheels on the pavement and was not floating, nor had it floated. It was headed eastbound as if Murbarger were going toward the Buggerville Blacktop.
Everett said that he himself was able to drive his truck a considerable distance into the backwater, as the flooding wasn’t necessarily deep there, but it certainly was cold.
Tips; no itinerary
Everett said no one knows what prompted Murbarger to exit her vehicle and attempt to walk out of the floodwaters and away from it, since it wasn’t floating. (Despite the cold, emergency management agencies recommend that under such a circumstance, if the car is not in danger of floating away and consequently submerging, the best advice is to climb out of the vehicle and to a spot on TOP of it, such as hood or roof, so that the survivor can be spotted for rescue; even if a person is drenched, hypothermia is less likely to occur when sitting on a dry spot than being partially submerged in water.)
It is possible that Murbarger believed that a residence to the north and west of her remote location might have been able to provide help, and that she was trying to make it out of the water and to that house.
Everett said that friends of Murbarger’s had last seen her in town earlier in the evening, and had indicated that she hadn’t been talking of an itinerary or any plans that would take her out to that “middle-of-nowhere” location at that time of night, nor at any other time.
Murbarger has most recently been a stay-at-home mom type, having spent a number of years working in the banking business in Wayne County as a vocation. She did not have any known substance abuse issues; however, toxicology was reportedly done at autopsy as a matter of course.
Murbarger was the daughter of long-time (now former) Albion City Clerk Gary Mason.
The investigation into her death continues.