Deadly crash by state police officer involved alcohol

The state police corporal who died in a wrong-way crash on the Schuylkill Expressway had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal threshold for intoxication at the time of the crash, authorities said Thursday.

Cpl. John Quigg Jr.'s blood alcohol was measured at 0.27 percent, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office said. That meant he was severely intoxicated early Wednesday when he steered his gold Honda Accord west into the eastbound lanes and struck a Mercury Marquis driven by Chantelle Harper, 23, of South Philadelphia.

Harper, a recent graduate of Rosemont College, was reported in good condition Thursday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she was recovering from surgery for leg injuries.

Quigg, 48, a state police traffic-accident reconstruction expert from Glenside, was killed in the crash, the examiner's office said. State police described the crash as "nearly head-on." Harper was wearing a seat belt; Quigg was not.

Preliminary screenings found no traces of drugs in Quigg's blood, the examiner's office said in a statement released by state police.

The statement said no additional comment would be forthcoming from colleagues who were grieving his death even as they investigated its circumstances.

"At this time, we . . . ask for your patience and understanding as we complete the investigation and attend to the needs of Ms. Harper and her family, as well as Cpl. Quigg's family and troopers who worked with him," the statement said.

State Police Trooper Danea Durham, who released the statement, said in a brief interview at the Philadelphia barracks on Belmont Avenue, where Quigg worked, that she did not know where he had been in the hours before the crash.

Quigg had been scheduled to appear Wednesday morning in Montgomery County Court for a pretrial conference on drunken-driving charges against him. That case arose from a Dec. 21 incident, in which his Honda rolled to a stop against a guard rail in the median strip of Route 422.

Police arrived to find him mumbling and unresponsive, with an open, almost-empty vodka bottle between his knees. (Durham said no such evidence was found in Quigg's car after Wednesday's crash.) Tests showed his blood-alcohol level to be 0.30 percent, according to court records.

He had been reassigned from accident investigations to desk duties to await the outcome of that case. He had also completed 30 days of alcohol rehabilitation and had been accepted into a court program for first-time offenders.

Had he completed a probation period successfully, the charges would have been expunged, his lawyer said.

Another state police spokeswoman, Lt. Myra A. Taylor, said there was precedent for a trooper to keep his job after completing a first-offender program; however, she said she could not comment on Quigg's case, "because the investigation wasn't over."

Timothy Woodward, Quigg's lawyer, said he was neither "shocked nor surprised" to hear of his client's blood-alcohol level, because he knew of the high relapse rate for people treated for alcoholism. "It's an insidious disease," he said.

"It's regrettable when you see good people - despite their best efforts - relapse," said Woodward. "He wanted to be clean and sober, but . . . it's not something that's easily licked."

Asked about speculation that Quigg might have intended to commit suicide, Woodward said he knew of no note or other information of such intentions.

Woodward did offer this clue to Quigg's state of mind: He had confided within the last three months that his marriage was "irretrievably broken" and that a divorce was likely in the near future.

Quigg leaves a wife, Denise Dick Quigg, and four children. A woman who spoke for the family said Denise Quigg was in seclusion Thursday.

Woodward said he sensed no particular anxiety when he spoke with Quigg last Friday about the coming hearing on the DUI charges, which had been scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday, just eight hours after the fatal crash. "I had no reason to believe he wouldn't show up," Woodward said.

He said Quigg had told him he expected to be suspended for a time, but not to lose his position or his rank. "Once he got his license back," Woodward said, "he'd be back on the job."

Doug O'Connor, a retired state trooper who had worked with Quigg for years, said he was shocked by Quigg's death.

O'Connor - who, like Quigg, specialized in accident reconstruction - said the two had worked together at the Skippack barracks and had taught classes together at the state police academy.

"He was a nice guy," O'Connor said, "and a hell of an investigator."

Quigg's lawyer said he hoped the tragedy would make other people take alcoholism more seriously.

"This is not a situation where someone can say, 'He's a cop, he should have known better,' " Woodward said. "It's a disease that doesn't discriminate who it strikes."