Bicyclist Died After Bethel Hit and Run

BETHEL -- The bicyclist who was trapped under a car after an accident on Route 302 Sunday has died, according to his wife. Police are looking for the driver of a second car, which fled the scene.

Thomas Steinert-Threlkeld, of Weston, a business journalist and avid bicyclist, was killed in the accident, police said.

His wife, Kayte Steinert-Threlkeld, wrote in a Facebook posting on Monday: "My dear husband, Tom, an avid and experienced bicyclist, was killed yesterday in Bethel..in what apparently was a hit and run accident," she wrote. "Our only consolation is that Tom was doing what he loved to do, riding his bike on a beautiful day and taking photos - and did not suffer."

Bethel Police Sgt. Stephen Pugner said Sunday that two vehicles were believed to be involved in the accident, which occurred shortly before 2:45 p.m. on Dodgingtown Road, also known as Route 302, near the Old Hawleyville Road intersection.

Steinert-Threlkeld was trapped under one of the vehicles, and had to be extricated by firefighters, according to radio scanner transmissions from emergency personnel at the accident site. The second vehicle left the scene, police said.

The road was closed immediately after the accident, but was reopened about four hours later.

Scanner reports initially indicated that the vehicle that fled may have been a black Mercedes SUV. Newtown police reported stopping one matching that description in the vicinity of Route 302 shortly after the accident.

But after determining the SUV had no damage, they recorded the operator's information and let it go.

Steinert-Threlkeld, 59, was editorial director at B2B Publishing and editor-in-chief of Edge of the Road, a web site for cyclists. He was a journalist who wrote about how technology is used to achieve business goals, according to his profile on LinkedIn.

A former business columnist and technology reporter for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas, he founded Baseline Magazine in 2001. He and his team subsequently won the Grand Neal Award from theAmerican Society of Magazine Editors for and investigation that uncovered a series of deaths in Panama resulting from a faulty piece of software developed by a St. Louis company.

His wife told DallasNews.com that Steinert-Threlkeld took up cycling 20 years ago, when knee problems forced him to give up running.

"He got on the bike and never got off," she told DallasNews.com.

A memorial service is scheduled for Saturday at Cobb's Mill Inn, a restaurant near the family home in Weston, Conn., DallasNews.com reported.

Police are asking anyone who may have seen the accident or who has information about it to call either Sgt. Pugner or Corporal James Christos at 203-743-5500.

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Submitted by Bethel, CT

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