Perry County man dies after ATV crash with deer near Oak Grove Road

A 39-year-old Crawford County man died after an ATV crash near Oak Grove Road in Perry County, and investigators said the vehicle struck a deer before he was found about 1:30 a.m. Sunday by a local resident. The Perry County Coroner’s Office identified the rider as Jeffrey Allen Davis Jr. and pronounced him dead at the scene.

Davis lived in Sulphur, Indiana, and an obituary from Chapman Funeral Home in Clarksville said he died Sunday, June 21, 2026, in Perry County. The obituary listed his birth date as Oct. 21, 1986, in Tampa, Florida.

Officials said Davis was not wearing a helmet. The Perry County Sheriff’s Office and the coroner’s office handled the investigation with help from Indiana State Police in Jasper and the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office, a response that moved beyond a routine crash call and into a fatality investigation.

Investigators have not yet determined whether Davis hit the deer or the deer hit him. Toxicology results are expected in about four weeks, adding another piece to the timeline that will help reconstruct what happened on the rural road.

The crash also fits a wider hazard pattern on Indiana roads and trails where wildlife and off-road vehicles overlap. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources says more than 14,000 deer-vehicle collisions are reported statewide each year, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says ATV riders should wear helmets and other protective gear and stay off paved roads except where permitted by law.

For Perry County, the details in this case are stark: a late-night discovery, a deer collision, and no helmet on the rider. Those facts now sit at the center of the investigation into how a trip near Oak Grove Road turned fatal.