A 16-year-old Marietta boy died Sunday evening after the off-road vehicle he was driving went off the roadway on private property and rolled over, according to the Pickens County Coroner's Office. Cruz Evatt Ellenburg, a 10th grader at Pickens High School, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The crash happened just before 5 p.m. Sunday on Dalton Road in Marietta, according to FOX Carolina, which reported that Ellenburg was unrestrained at the time of the wreck. The coroner's office said personnel were dispatched to an address on Dalton Road in response to the motor vehicle accident, according to The State.
The State reported that the UTV — an off-road vehicle typically used for work, per online resources — went off the roadway and rolled over on private property. The outlet's report said the crash is being investigated by both the Pickens County Sheriff's Office and the coroner's office, and that a forensic autopsy will be scheduled for a later date. No cause or manner of death has been released.
A Pattern of Off-Road Fatalities Across South Carolina
Ellenburg's death adds to a string of fatal ATV and UTV crashes reported around South Carolina in recent years. Earlier this year, the Fairfield County Coroner's Office noted that a person had died at an ATV park in the state for the eighth time since 2020, the same account from The State's coverage of Carolina Adventure World fatalities notes.
Among those earlier deaths, 18-year-old Braiden Ham of Dallas, North Carolina, died on June 7, 2026, after he appeared to lose control of an ATV he was riding alone at Carolina Adventure World in Winnsboro, flipping the vehicle. A passerby found Ham about an hour after the crash, and he died at the scene; an autopsy was scheduled the following day to determine his exact cause of death, per the same account.
On Oct. 25, 2025, a 28-year-old woman from Charlotte died at the same park when the ATV she was driving rolled over and landed on her. Other fatalities recorded at the Midlands park include a 35-year-old Charlotte man killed in July 2022 when his vehicle flipped and landed on him, two South Carolina men who died in February 2022 after their ATV crashed through a gate and went down a 30-foot embankment, and a 22-year-old Charlotte man who died in August 2021 after being thrown from an ATV when its driver lost control.
The Pickens County Sheriff's Office and Coroner's Office continue to investigate what led the vehicle off the roadway.
