A Teddy Bear. Hockey Sticks. A box of Cheez-Nips. A Broken Skateboard. A Red Balloon. A Jersey. Flowers. Lots of flowers.
These are the things which sit amid the broken glass, plastic car parts and pieces of tree bark on Democracy Boulevard near Iron Gate Road in Potomac, where Roderick Bower, 17, of Kensington, died at 3:40 a.m. on May 22.
“I lost my Rod,” said Melissa Spielman, a classmate of Bower’s from Walter Johnson. Speilman has lived across the street from Bower since she was in the second grade. “Our neighborhood was so, so close.”
Speilman was one of a steady stream of teens and adults who came to the roadside shrine where Bower died.
“I don’t know if there’s anything I could say that would give it justice — his life and what he meant to people,” said Lizzy Youle, another of Bower’s classmates.
Bower was the starting goalie on the Walter Johnson lacrosse team, and had a playoff game scheduled for later that day. (See story page 28)
Bower had not attended his prom, or post-prom which was on that night, according to reports by Montgomery County Police.
Police have not been able to determine where he was or where he was going.
Students said he was returning home from a friend’s house in Potomac.
Bower left his home without his parents knowledge, say police.
He was driving east on Democracy when his car crossed the centerline and hit a tree on the westbound side.
“At this time there is no indication that alcohol was a factor,” said Joyce Utter, spokesperson for Montgomery County Police.
Bower was wearing his seatbelt at the time. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
There were two fatal car accidents on Democracy Boulevard between Falls and Stapleford Hall roads in 2001, say police.
Police are continuing their investigation, but investigations of this type typically take months.