San Jose Mercury News: September 30, 2006, page B8

September crash victim dies
By Kaycee O'Farrell

A Mountain View man has died after a month on life support following a solo car accident that may have been a botched suicide attempt.

Joshua David Boyd, 26, regained consciousness only briefly after the September 6 crash on Highway 1 six miles north of the Highway 84 intersection. Boyd was southbound on a straightaway near Tunitas Creek when his 1994 Alfa Romeo veered left suddenly, crossing the double yellow line and smashing into a large oak tree on the far side of the roadway. A Highway Patrol officer who declined to be identified for this story said the accident was considered a suicide attempt, although the official incident report lists the accident cause as "driver error."

Boyd had been unemployed since he was laid off from a failing Internet startup, eSynapse.com, last November. But relatives said Boyd seemed upbeat about his prospects and had submitted several proposals for venture capital funding in the spring.

"It's not like our Josh to give up on life," said his mother, Jackie Boyd, of Atlanta, Ga., who along with her husband, Ron Boyd, kept constant vigil at their son's bedside at Stanford University Hospital.

The Boyds said that during one of his brief bouts of consciousness, Josh, an alumni of the University of Mississippi, insisted on contacting law enforcement officials there about a fellow student whose remains were recently discovered buried on campus.

"He was engaged in the world, fighting right to the end," said Jackie Boyd.

Boyd's family is arranging a private funeral and memorial service, both to be held in Atlanta.