Autopsy finds Eastern Shore Driver Killed in NC crash was drunk; missing woman not found

December 2, 2022
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According to an article in the Herald Sun in Durham North Carolina, and the Roanoke Times,  a Virginia truck driver was at four times the legal limit for being impaired when he crashed his tractor-trailer rig into an Orange County, N.C., bridge in September, according to an autopsy released Wednesday.

Danny McNeal, a 51-year-old driver with Moore’s Trucking in Virginia, was carrying a load of frozen chickens when his truck ran off the right shoulder of Interstate 85 early around 2:12 a.m. Sept. 14, veering toward a guardrail and back toward the highway before crashing into the N.C. 86 bridge, law enforcement and EMS records showed.

His truck flipped over, bursting into flames before it stopped on the right bank under the bridge. Troopers estimated that McNeal was going 65 mph — the legal speed limit — when he hit the bridge.

The family of Alyssa Taylor, 25, thinks she was in the truck when it crashed and also was killed, but the N.C. Highway Patrol has officially determined that only McNeal and his dog Blu were involved in the crash, Patrol spokesman Sgt. Christopher Knox has said.

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A toxicology report released by the N.C. Medical Examiner’s Office on Wednesday afternoon showed McNeal had a blood-alcohol content of 0.32 — four times the state’s legal limit for impairment — when he crashed.

His official cause of death is listed as multiple blunt force injuries from the crash although 60% of his body was burned in the resulting fire, the autopsy states.

The report also noted that McNeal was seen on video surveillance footage buying alcohol at a convenience store along his route that night, and that he was traveling with another person that night. However only one set of remains was identified at the scene, the autopsy it said.

Taylor’s family has continued to look for clues to her whereabouts,  filing a missing person’s report with the Accomack County Sheriff’s Office and traveling to North Carolina to look for clues at the scene, in the wreckage and at a landfill where the truck’s cargo and debris was buried.

Taylor was a mother of two from Oak Hall  and texted her mother  on September 13  to say she was riding with McNeal on his run from Delaware to North Carolina and would be home in two days.

Accomack County Sheriff’s investigators said that it does appear Alyssa Taylor was in the truck at least until it reached Henderson about 40 minutes north of Hillsborough where the accident occurred. However, video footage retrieved from highway cameras only showed McNeal in the truck.

This article appeared in both the Herald-Sun and the Roanoke Times newspapers.

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