GEORGE M. WALSH | Monday, May 23, 2011

Updated at 2:03 p.m. PST

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Authorities were investigating the death of an upstate New York man whose body they said was run over on a rural road by an off-duty state trooper, police said Monday.

Fulton County Undersheriff Kevin Lenahan said the trooper, Brian Beardsley, 32, was with his girlfriend at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday when they drove over a body, turned around to confirm it was a pedestrian, called 911 and then left the scene. Deputies found 29-year-old Chad Finch dead near his home in Providence, not far from a restaurant he'd visited earlier and left on foot.

Lenahan said investigators traced the 911 call, located Beardsley's pickup within an hour or 90 minutes and found Finch's blood and tissue on its undercarriage. He said Beardsley was given a pre-screening test and there was no evidence he was impaired or intoxicated two hours after the initial call.

An autopsy performed Monday may determine why Finch was in the road and if he was alive when run over by Beardsley's truck, Lenahan said. There was no evidence, like debris or skid marks, to indicate Finch had been hit by another vehicle before he was run over, he said.

Investigators were tracing the activities of both men in the hours before Finch's body was found to determine how he ended up in the road and to assess Beardsley's actions, he said.

Beardsley has not been charged, but Lenahan said he should have stayed at the scene after finding Finch, though he wasn't certain leaving was a crime.

"We're putting the whole investigation together and turning it over to the district attorney," Lenahan said.

Lt. Glenn Miner, a spokesman for the state police in Albany, said the agency has opened an internal investigation and is gathering information from Fulton County authorities.

He said Beardsley is an eight-year veteran assigned to the Mayfield barracks.

Providence is about 40 miles northwest of Albany.