WICHITA, Kansas (KWCH) – The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI), Harvey County Sheriff’s Office and Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP) are conducting a death investigation after a man was found dead in a crashed car on Sunday.
At approximately 2:45 p.m., the Harvey County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a property owner who found a crashed red 2011 Chevy Silverado on his property in a rural part of the county.
Officers responded to a field near mile marker 32 at the intersection of US Highway 50 and Interstate 135. They found a dead man in the vehicle.
The Harvey County Sheriff’s Office requested assistance from the KBI around 3:10 p.m. KHP’s Critical Highway Accident Response Team also responded to the investigation. Investigators believe the vehicle left the road and struck a tree.
According to the KBI, the vehicle was registered to 42-year-old Jonathan Clayton of Peabody. Positive identification is pending an autopsy.
Clayton was temporarily town clerk of Peabody. According to the Peabody Gazette Bulletinhe disappeared on August 3. Clayton is said to be at the center of an investigation into the loss of COVID-19 funding for a local program called Peabody Main Street.
According to the newspaper, the state had ordered Peabody Main Street to repay $740,000 of a $1.5 million grant because it failed to submit “required financial and project reports.” Clayton was responsible for submitting those documents, according to the Peabody Gazette-Bulletin.
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