An Alabama nurse was killed Saturday during Greenwood’s Bikes, Blues & Bayous cycling event when the bicycle she was riding was struck from behind by a motorist.
The fatality is the second in the 16-year history of Mississippi’s largest ride.
Leflore County Coroner Debra Sanders identified the victim as Marilyn Mott, 26, of Cordova, Alabama.
Sanders said she received a call about the accident around 7:30 a.m. Saturday, a half-hour after Mott and more than 400 other cyclists took off from downtown Greenwood on the 62-mile route, the longest of the ride’s five distances.
Sanders said the collision occurred on U.S. 49 near the Rising Sun community, just south of the Greenwood city limits.
Mott was riding a low-to-the-ground, three-wheel recumbent bicycle and had apparently fallen behind her group, according to Sanders. The cyclist was struck from behind by a 2016 Honda Accord, driven by Darrell Sproles, 40, of Greenwood, according to a brief statement released Saturday night by the Highway Patrol.
Mott was transported to Greenwood Leflore Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 8:41 a.m.
Her husband, Perry, was cycling in the opposite direction on the 46-mile route and was notified as soon as he could be located.
Marilyn Mott, according to her Facebook page, worked as a registered nurse at UAB Medicine, the academic medical center located in Birmingham. Cordova, a town of about 1,700, is located 30 miles northwest of Birmingham and about 200 miles from Greenwood.
Sgt. Justin Wade with the Highway Patrol said on Saturday afternoon that investigators were looking into whether speeding was involved and that no charges had been filed against the driver of the vehicle.
Bikes, Blues & Bayous is organized by the Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce.
Beth Stevens, the chamber’s executive director, extended her organization’s condolences to the family of the cyclist.
“Of course we are certainly very saddened by this, and it’s a terrible, tragic situation,” she said.
In 2019, Jim O’Daniel, a 49-year-old cyclist from Clinton, was struck and killed on the 62-mile route by a motorist on U.S. 82 near Itta Bena.
The family of O’Daniel later filed a lawsuit over his death against the chamber, the city of Greenwood, the Highway Patrol, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety and Southern Tire Mart, the company for which the driver was working at the time of the accident.
That lawsuit is still active.
- Contact Katherine Parker at 662-581-7239 or kparker@gwcommonwealth.com. Editor Tim Kalich and Staff Writer Kevin Edwards contributed to this report.
