SHENANDOAH COUNTY, VA (Rocktown Now) — The man long considered the prime suspect in the 1996 murders of two women in Shenandoah National Park has died just two weeks after a DNA match cleared him of the crime.

KTTN in Missouri first reported that Darrell D. Rice was killed the night of July 5th when he was struck by a vehicle while riding a bicycle in Chariton County, Missouri. The 56-year-old was airlifted to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Rice became a suspect in the murders of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans when he was arrested and charged in an assault on a female bicyclist in the park one year after the murders in 1997. He was indicted on murder charges in 2002, while in prison for the attack on the bicyclist, but the charges were withdrawn when a forensic witness changed her testimony.

Rice had been eliminated as a contributor, but it wasn’t until authorities held a press conference on June 20 of this year that Rice was publicly cleared. The DNA match from new testing identified an Ohio man, Walter “Leo” Jackson, Sr.