Jesse Davis was a good kid who made a mistake the night he crashed a dirt bike on Highway 63 and died, those close to him say.

"The kid wasn’t a dummy. He just made a bad choice," said Davis’ brother, Brian.

Jesse Davis, a 19-year-old from St. Charles, was returning from a mud run event in Callaway County when he crashed about 11:40 p.m. Saturday, his brother said. Four cars ran over him on the highway.

"Jesse Davis was a good boy, a straight-A student," Brian Davis said. "He just wanted to go home."

Authorities think the dirt bike he was riding had been stolen earlier in the night.

The Callaway County Sheriff’s Department said it received a report about 7:10 p.m. that the motorcycle had been stolen, and Columbia police confirmed this morning that they are working with the Callaway County sheriff’s office to determine who owned the bike.

Davis was driving the bike on Highway 63 with no lights and no helmet. Police said he was also driving recklessly when he smashed into Travis Odle’s car near the Route AC exit and was knocked off his bike.

Brian Davis said he thinks his brother’s friends had left the mud run without him and that Davis had no way to get back to Columbia, where he was staying with another relative.

It wasn’t like him to operate a bike without a helmet, Brian said, adding that his younger brother was a fairly experienced rider and that the family has a long history of bike riding. Davis’ dad died in a motorcycle accident about 10 years ago, Brian Davis said.

Jesse Davis was getting ready to start a new job, his brother said. "He was straightening his life out."

Davis dropped out of Orchard Farms High School in St. Charles for a year but returned and graduated this past spring.

He played football his freshman year and ran cross country last year.

"He was a very confident and determined student," his former high school principal, Tim McInnis said. "He set goals and did everything he could to reach those goals. … His peers would describe Jesse as loyal, a leader in the crowd. I would have to concur with that."

McInnis said Davis had expressed an interest in going to law school.

"He was a good kid," said Shirley Rollins, a family friend. He "had intentions of going back to school to continue his education."

Meanwhile, Odle is trying to get back into the college routine after his involvement in the fatality. The University of Missouri-Columbia sophomore was heading back to Columbia when Davis’ bike hit his Pontiac just past the Route AC exit Saturday night.

"It came flying out of the fast lane into the driver’s side," Odle said. "Everything happened so fast. Had I not been there, he would have gone off the road."

Odle pulled over and tried to help Davis, but he couldn’t stop oncoming traffic.

"It’s not completely hit me yet," Odle said Monday, two days after the crash. "It will hit me soon. I was in class today, and it dawned on me that my car’s not here."