RICHLAND TOWNSHIP, Ohio — A 20-year-old Lancaster man died Saturday afternoon in a single-vehicle crash on a rural Vinton County road, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said. Elijah Brandenburger was pronounced dead at the scene after his car left the roadway and overturned.
The crash happened around 3:30 p.m. on Kelly Road near the Murphy Remy Road intersection in Richland Township. Troopers said Brandenburger was driving a 1998 Toyota Camry northeast when the car veered off the right side of the road, struck an embankment and a tree, and flipped. The patrol’s Jackson post is handling the investigation.
Vinton County EMS personnel pronounced Brandenburger dead at the scene. Responders from the McArthur Fire Department and the Vinton County Sheriff’s Office assisted troopers, along with a towing company and a funeral home, the patrol said.
The crash remains under investigation, and troopers have not released a suspected cause. Single-vehicle run-off-road crashes are among the most common fatal crash types on Ohio’s rural two-lane roads. Brandenburger was a Lancaster resident; Lancaster is the seat of neighboring Fairfield County, roughly 45 miles northwest of the crash site.
