Chesapeake suicide crash driver left home in hurry

CHESAPEAKE

Robert Michael O'Brien left his Southwind Drive apartment alone Monday evening, walked quickly to his car and sped through a stop sign as he left the complex.

A neighbor watched him go.

Ninety minutes later, O'Brien – now with his wife in the car – plowed into oncoming traffic at the High-Rise Bridge in an effort to kill them both.

O'Brien, 44, died instantly when he sideswiped a minivan and hit a pickup head on. So did the driver of the pickup. O'Brien's wife, 25-year-old Chona Mae Cuestas O'Brien, survived and was listed in good condition at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital on Wednesday.

Sgt. Michelle Cotten, a state police spokeswoman, declined to offer any new details in the crash, including a possible motive, whether alcohol was involved or how fast O'Brien was traveling at the time of impact.

O'Brien phoned an acquaintance just before the crash to say that there was a letter at his residence and to watch the news.

He told his wife he planned to kill them both. She scrambled over the seat, and O'Brien drove west into eastbound traffic.

Police later recovered an 11-page suicide note from O'Brien's home but have declined to discuss what it said.

"I don't think we'll be giving out any more information," Cotten said.

O'Brien and his wife shared the apartment near Chesapeake General Hospital, said a neighbor who did not want to be named. O'Brien had lived there for at least four years.

State police listed O'Brien's residence as Franklin Street in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. The couple owned a home there but came by only to check on the property or work on it, neighbor Kevin Wescott said.

O'Brien's first and middle name were incorrectly inverted in a Pilot story Wednesday because of a source error.

The O'Briens planned to rent the one-story duplex on the Outer Banks to foreign student workers, Wescott said. "I always saw him driving a red Ford truck. This past summer he was there quite a bit."

The couple bought the property – valued at about $232,000 – in April 2008, according to Dare County tax documents.

O'Brien once owned a Kill Devil Hills business called Cyclone Audio Video, which installed electronics in Outer Banks homes, said an acquaintance who has known O'Brien since 1998 and worked with him in 2003.

Wescott last saw O'Brien and his wife less than a month ago. "They came down to check on the property and stayed about 10 or 15 minutes. She had a little dog with her."

O'Brien talked a lot about living in the Philippines, Wescott said. "He was always bragging about how it was cheap to live there and if you ever want to go to the Philippines, let me know. He seemed like an odd bird. She was a nice girl. You never know anything like that is going to happen."

Pilot news researcher Maureen Watts contributed to this report.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5208, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com