Girl on bicycle killed in accident

A Berkeley Springs teen on her way to soccer training was struck and killed last Thursday when her bicycle collided with a vehicle.
Joy Alexandria Rickli, 13, was traveling eastbound on Fairfax Street from War Memorial Hospital while riding a Schwinn bicycle. Jeffery Perry, 50, was driving westbound on Fairfax Street from Martinsburg Road in a 2000 Ford Explorer.

Near the intersection of Fairfax Street and Martinsburg Road, the
bicycle and the vehicle struck each other, according to Morgan County Sheriff’s Deputy Kevin Barney, the investigating officer.

Rickli was thrown from her bicycle, possibly hitting the hood of the Explorer and landed around 10 ft. north of the roadway edge, Barney said.
Initial scene investigation and witness accounts indicated that the teen was riding her bike eastbound in the westbound lane.

Damage to the front passenger side of the Explorer matched the damage to the bicycle found at the scene, Barney noted. The bike
came to rest along the fog line of the westbound lane, he said.

The Morgan County Rescue Service transported Rickli to War Memorial Hospital, where she died of her injuries.

Morgan County Coroner Steve McBee responded to the hospital as did Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Lemon of the Sheriff’s Department Accident Reconstruction team.

Lemon’s report and the coroner’s final report were still being completed at press time.

There were no charges pending against Perry for the accident.

Scholarship fundRickli was a student at Warm Springs Middle School and a member of the school band and soccer team.

She had recently made the high school varsity
soccer team. She would have been a freshman at Berkeley Springs High
School this fall.

The Berkeley Springs High School girls’ soccer team will be wearing wristbands in Rickli’s memory.

Proceeds from the sale of the wristbands will go to a memorial scholarship fund created at CNB. The family will decide at a later date what the
wristband proceeds will go toward.