82-year-old Perry County woman killed in two-vehicle crash on Old Beech Fork Road

A deadly curve on Old Beech Fork Road has put Perry County investigators back on a mountain roadway where even a brief loss of control can be fatal. The Perry County Sheriff’s Office called Kentucky State Police Post 13 in Hazard around 4:30 p.m. Monday, April 13, to assist with the investigation and reconstruction of a two-vehicle crash in the Slemp community.

State police said a black Ford F-250 was traveling on Old Beech Fork Road when the driver failed to negotiate a steep curve, crossed the center line and struck a white Ford Explorer. Bobbie Boggs, 82, of Big Laurel, was driving the Explorer and was pronounced dead at the scene by the Perry County Coroner’s Office. Some local reports said the driver of the F-250 and two passengers were taken to Hazard ARH Regional Medical Center for treatment.

The decision to bring in KSP reconstruction investigators signals that the case is still being worked through in detail, with troopers expected to sort out the sequence of events, vehicle movement, speed and roadway conditions. That kind of analysis is standard after a fatal crash when investigators need a clearer picture of how a collision unfolded and whether the road layout, driver action or other factors were decisive.

The crash also fits a broader safety problem on rural mountain roads. The Federal Highway Administration has said some of the most serious rural-road crashes happen at horizontal curves, and national rural-road safety material says 42% of rural roadway-departure fatal crashes happen at curves. That same material says 75% of curve-related fatal crashes involve a single vehicle leaving the roadway and striking a fixed object or overturning. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and federal safety efforts have focused on roadway-departure crashes on curves through measures such as improved curve signing, rumble stripes and high-friction surface treatments.

Perry County’s geography helps explain why these crashes draw such attention. The county covers 339.7 square miles of land and had a population of 28,473 in the 2020 census. About 18.6% of residents were age 65 and older in 2024, a reminder that many families in the county rely on roads like Old Beech Fork Road for daily travel across steep terrain between places such as Slemp, Big Laurel and Hazard.