WARREN, Ohio —
Investigators on Monday tried to piece together what eight teenagers crammed into a stolen SUV were up to before the vehicle flipped over into a pond, killing six of them.
Authorities gave few details on where the group of friends had been and why they were out around daybreak Sunday, speeding down a two-lane road. On Monday, the SUV’s owner met with police and filed a stolen-car report; police said none of the teens was related to the owner or had asked to use the vehicle.
Whether all the teens knew the SUV was stolen wasn’t clear. Neither was their whereabouts before the crash.
While the father of one of the dead said the teenagers were coming home from a sleepover at a friend’s house, the mother of another boy killed said that her son and his best friend had lied about staying over at each other’s homes that evening. She said she thinks they went to a party.
“If only he had listened,” said Lisa Williamson, mother of 14-year-old Brandon Murray. “I told him, ‘Don’t you go nowhere.’ But they’re kids.”
The SUV hit a guardrail in an industrial section of town and landed upside down in about 5 feet of water, filling up within minutes, State Highway Patrol Lt. Brian Holt said. Five boys and a young woman, ages 14 to 19, were killed.
Two boys smashed a rear window, wriggled out of the wreckage and swam away, then ran a quarter-mile to a home to call 911, authorities said. Brian Henry, 18, and Asher Lewis, 15, suffered only minor injuries.
Investigators said they believe excessive speed was a key factor in the crash, which took place in a 35 mph zone alongside a steel mill near what’s known in the neighborhood as “Dead Man’s Curve.” Authorities did not say how fast the SUV was going. They were also awaiting the results of drug and alcohol tests.
All eight teenagers were from Warren, a mostly blue-collar city of 41,000 near the Pennsylvania line, about 60 miles east of Cleveland.
Friends and family members described the teens as good kids who weren’t troublemakers. Williamson said many of them would hang out and stay overnight in her basement to play video games, listen to music and watch movies.
She said her son called late Saturday night and said he was staying at the home of his best friend Ramone White. She said it wasn’t until after the accident that she found out that wasn’t true.
“It’s what we did when we were growing up, too,” said Williamson, who was wearing a rubber “Jesus Loves You” bracelet that she took off her dead son’s wrist.
Andre Bennett Sr., whose son Andrique was among those killed, said that his son and the others had all stayed over at a friend’s house and that a girl offered them a ride home.
Chris Jones, 16, said he used to see most of the victims every day at school and in their neighborhood. He knew all but two in the crash.
“They’re not always the best kids. They’re not out there looking for straight A’s,” he said. “But none of these kids should be where they are today. This should have never had happened.”
At a prayer service Monday night, Mayor Doug Franklin told about 200 people that lessons can be learned from the crash. He spoke about the young people who died and their grieving relatives.
“They’re not unlike any other families and young people throughout our country,” he said. “Some bad decisions were made that led to this tragic event.”
Five of the dead were trapped inside the sunken SUV. A sixth was thrown from the vehicle and was found underneath it when it was taken out of the water.
State police identified them as the 19-year-old driver, Alexis Cayson; Andrique Bennett, 14; Brandon Murray, 14; and Kirklan Behner, Ramone White and Daylan Ray, all 15. Cayson, Murray and Ray drowned, the coroner said. Autopsies on the others were incomplete.
“All I know is my baby is gone,” said Derrick Ray, who came to the crash site after viewing Daylan’s body at the morgue. He said he knew that his son, a football player who was looking forward to playing in high school, was out with friends, but didn’t know their plans.
None of the teens in the five-seat 1998 Honda Passport was wearing a seat belt, state police said.
National, International News
Related Photos
-
Members of the community listen during a prayer service Monday, March 11, 2013, in Warren, Ohio. Community members crowded into a prayer service to remember six teens killed when an SUV flipped over a guardrail and landed upside down in a pond. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak) The Associated Press
Discussion
Owner: SUV in crash that killed 6 was stolen
- National, International News
-
-
Bombs targeting Sunnis kill at least 76 in Iraq
Bombs ripped through Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months. The major spike in sectarian bloodshed heightened fears the country could again be veering toward civil war.
-
Tornado-ravaged Texas town to start recovery
Residents whose homes were torn apart or blown away by a North Texas deadly tornado can soon return to retrieve what belongings may be left and start cleaning up, authorities said Friday.
-
Conn. commuter trains collide; 60 go to hospitals
Two commuter trains serving New York City collided in Connecticut during Friday’s evening rush hour, sending 60 people to the hospital, including five with critical injuries, Gov. Dannel Malloy said.
-
Record Powerball jackpot inspires office pools
In workplaces across the nation, Americans are inviting their colleagues to chip in $2 for a Powerball ticket and a shared daydream.
-
Today in History for Saturday, May 18, 2013
Today is Saturday, May 18, the 138th day of 2013. There are 227 days left in the year.
-
Big retailers back safety accord in Bangladesh
Some of the world’s largest retailers have agreed to a first-of-its-kind pact to improve safety at some of Bangladesh’s garment factories following a building collapse that killed more than 1,100 workers in the country last month.
-
Amtrak unveils locomotives to replace aging fleet
Amtrak has unveiled at a plant in California the first of 70 new locomotives, marking what the national passenger railroad service said it hopes will be a new era of better reliability, streamlined maintenance and more energy efficiency.
-
Police ID suspect in New Orleans mass shooting
Police late Monday identified a 19-year-old man as a suspect in the shooting of about 20 people during a Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans, saying several people had identified him as the gunman captured by surveillance camera videos.
-
Obama tries to swat down 2 swirling controversies
President Barack Obama tried to swat down a pair of brewing controversies Monday, denouncing as “outrageous” the targeting of conservative political groups by the federal IRS but angrily denying any administration cover-up after last year’s deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
-
Gov’t obtains wide AP phone records in probe
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.
- More National, International News Headlines
-
