Family members say Harold Barron was riding his ATV on Moffitt and Barron in southwest houston when it flipped. The fomer sheriff's deputy was kiilled.
Police dispatchers got the call just after 10pm Friday. A man in his 70s had gone to a back pasture on his property on an ATV and hadn't come back.
"The wife of the deceased called. She was trying to locate her husband. She was unable to find him," Houston Police Sgt. Cedric Nickerson said.
Officers at first couldn't find the man, who family identified as Barron. They had to call in air support. Finally, they found his overturned ATV near a bayou in the back of his property.
"The vehicle actually turned over and the gentleman was actually pinned onto the ground by the vehicle," Nickerson said.
Authorities say the chain on the ATV may have become caught on a concrete pillar, causing the vehicle to flip.
By mid-morning, Alma Miller, who has lived next door to Barron for 20 years, had heard the news.
"You don't want to believe it. You have this doubt in your mind, did it really happen?" Miller said.
According to a former Fort Bend County employee, Barron served as a sheriff's deputy with the county for several years in the 1970s before a welding accident left him badly burned.
Miller says Barron bounced back from the accident and was always quick to help out a neighbor.
"Harold Barron was an honorable, loving, religious, great friend," she said. "A wonderful person of the community, he'll never be forgotten."
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