KEWANEE -- An 800-pound elk was killed by a southbound Memphis motorist on I-55 north of LaForge near the Kewanee junction in New Madrid County at 12:15 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 4.
The elk is believed to be the same one that was spotted by Rick Davis and several other people in a Butler County rice field south of Poplar Bluff the last week of September.
According to a report filed by the New Madrid County Sheriff's Office, the elk hit a 1998 jeep driven by Michael Sample Jr. from Memphis and the impact totaled the jeep. Sample was not injured.
Tony Comstock, New Madrid County deputy sheriff, investigated the accident. "The driver said he was driving along and there was a big deer in the middle of the roadway," Comstock said. "He was driving 70 m.p.h. and didn't see it in time. The elk hit the front of the jeep and spun around and damaged the rear."
Comstock said he located the elk on the side of the highway about a half mile north of the accident site.
According to the Missourian-News at Portageville, Richard Edwards of Marston drove the wrecker that picked up the jeep and the elk. The newspaper reported that Edwards and several of his friends dined on elk meat that afternoon. Edwards described the meat as "delicious."
Jerry Creach of Neelyville, who has hunted elk, talked with Edwards and said from the description of the elk given to him he believes it is the same elk that was spotted in Butler County. "It had a five (point) by five real tall rack. When he described the rack, I said, "That was it,'" Creach said.
The distance between the rice farm it was spotted at and the Kewanee junction is about 50 miles.