God Bless and Godspeed, JoshFor those of you I went to high school with, if you knew Josh Wisner you might want to read this.
Posted on Tue, Feb. 28, 2006
Bizarre accident leads to death of two
24-year-olds plunge from viaduct
By CHRISTINE VENDEL
The Kansas City Star
Maybe he didn't want to get caught drinking again. Maybe she didn't want him to take off alone in the darkness.
Whatever the reasons, two 24-year-olds ran from a minor traffic accident early Saturday, climbed a viaduct fence and fell about 80 feet. For two days, no one knew.
Worried friends found Christi Harris' body on gravel-covered ground early Monday. Police officers later discovered Joshua Wisner's body on a dirt embankment nearby.
Their deaths are the latest in a string of deaths involving the Interstate 70 viaduct, which crosses Manchester Trafficway, the Blue River and three railroad tracks.
Police Maj. Bryon Price thinks the couple wanted to reach the other lanes of traffic and didn't realize the danger lurking in the darkness. He almost fell in the same place in the winter of 1987 while helping an accident victim in the eastbound lanes.
"I was planning to jump over the concrete barrier into the middle, then jump over the other concrete barrier into the westbound lanes to get help," he recalled.
Once he got his leg on the first barrier, he stopped to talk to another police officer. That's when he glanced down and saw nothing but air between the barriers.
"It was very scary," Price said. "I'm sweating now just thinking about it."
Sometime in the past eight years, state workers added a fence atop the concrete barriers. But Wisner, of Raytown, and Harris, of Grain Valley, apparently climbed the fence along the eastbound lanes, police said.
Wisner and Harris had just left a casino bar with two other friends, including a 24-year-old woman who was driving the group. She later told police that another car passed her too closely and she swerved to avoid a collision. She crashed into the concrete barrier about 1:30 a.m. Saturday.
The driver and other passenger waited for police and left with a tow truck driver pulling the 2005 Nissan Maxima. Police doubt the driver and passenger knew that Harris and Wisner had fallen.
Harris' relatives speculated Monday that Wisner wanted to avoid police because he was on probation and may have been drinking alcohol. As part of his probation, he was to avoid alcohol and drugs, a Jackson County Courthouse spokeswoman said.
Wisner, the son of a police officer, was to have been sentenced Monday for several convictions, including two for driving while impaired and one for distributing a controlled substance.
A friend began searching for him late Sunday. As that friend drove around, Wisner's dad called police to report his son missing. After several hours, the friend went below the viaduct with another friend and found Harris' body. He called Wisner's dad, who called police shortly before 3 a.m.
Officers found Wisner face down with one of Harris' shoes nearby. She also was face down, a few feet below him.
It was unclear Monday whether they died immediately. Some of Harris' relatives who gathered at the scene Monday reported seeing small pools of blood across a 10-foot radius where Harris' body had been, leading them to wonder whether she had moved around.
Throughout the day Monday, friends and relatives visited the scene. Some brought artificial flowers. Others tried to understand the bizarre accident.
"It doesn't make any sense," said Harris' cousin Misty Cooper. "We have so many questions."
Another cousin said the image of Harris scaling a highway fence belied what she knew of Harris.
"She was a scaredy-cat," said Tanya Hillyard. "Tornado warnings would freak her out. She wasn't the type to even walk on a highway."
Harris had been separated from her husband about a year, relatives said. She and Wisner had been dating at least four months, they said. She graduated in 1999 from Raytown South High School. He graduated from there a year later.
"The school's sympathy goes out to these families," Principal Kevin Overfelt said Monday. "Joshua and Christi were very well liked by students and staff."
One of Harris' cousins described Wisner as "a class clown" in high school.
"He was happy-go-lucky, the life of the party," said Brandi Meyer. "He could start a conversation with anybody."
The medical examiner performed autopsies Monday. Preliminary results were consistent with the long fall, police said. They are awaiting toxicology results. The final report may say whether the victims were alive after their fall, police said. | 
