MERCER – A Belgrade man killed himself early Thursday morning when he drove his Jeep Grand Cherokee into a tractor-trailer on Route 2, police said.

David Leavitt was traveling east in a 1997 Jeep that crossed the center line, swerving into a loaded pulp truck at 2:43 a.m. Thursday, according to police.

“Investigators say it was an intentional act that killed 46-year-old David Leavitt of Belgrade,” said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The 2000 International pulp truck was driven by Randy Wentworth, 50, of Abbott Village, which is west of Dover-Foxcroft in Piscataquis County. He was traveling west with a load of wood for a paper mill in Jay, said Maine State Police Trooper Diane Vance, who investigated the accident.

The investigation revealed Leavitt intentionally crossed the center line causing the head-on crash, she said.

“Troopers learned that Leavitt had been despondent over the breakup of his marriage and had been talking about suicide in recent days,” McCausland said in a news release.

Busy Route 2, a major east-west highway through Maine, was closed to traffic for approximately 10 hours because of the heavy damage to both vehicles and the need to unload the wood to get the truck back on the road, Vance said.

“During 14 years of doing this, I’ve never seen a vehicle so damaged,” Vance said. “The collision practically melted the tractor-trailer and Jeep into one vehicle.”

The driver of the truck was not injured and did nothing inappropriate, she said. His rig had about $50,000 damage, McCausland said.

State police were assisted at the scene by New Sharon and Norridgewock fire departments.

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