‘Shaken our community’: Kearney teens killed in crash involving police pursuit from Iowa
Two Kearney High School students were among three people killed when a police pursuit that began in Iowa ended in a wrong-way crash involving four vehicles Sunday on Interstate 29 in Missouri near the Iowa border, a spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.
A third teen from Kearney was seriously injured in the crash that occurred about 7:20 a.m. on I-29 in Atchison County, Missouri, about six miles north of Watson. The driver of the vehicle being pursued, a 29-year-old man from Bellevue, Nebraska, also died.
Kearney Mayor Randy Pogue posted a message on Facebook Monday morning, offering his sympathies to the students’ families.
“The loss of the two Kearney Bulldogs in the tragic accident yesterday up North has shaken our community,” Pogue said in the post. “May courage and hope be the steadfast companions of both families, friends, and all who mourn. Praying for you all.”
Law enforcement pursuit
The pursuit that ended in the fatal crash was launched when the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office received a domestic assault report from a woman at a hospital in Hamburg, Iowa, around 6:15 a.m. Sunday, Sheriff Kevin Aistrope said in a news release about the incident.
The woman reported she and her 1-year-old child had been kidnapped in Nebraska by a male acquaintance — who she said was suicidal and homicidal — who fled local law enforcement into Iowa, according to the release. The man reportedly dropped the woman off at the hospital and fled with the child in a 2023 Kia Sorento.
Fremont County deputies and Iowa State Patrol troopers both pursued the vehicle, which law enforcement said got onto Interstate 29 going southbound in the northbound lanes.
The pursuit continued with a Fremont County deputy also traveling in northbound lanes against the traffic flow, while other law enforcement continued in the southbound lanes, officials said, and the chase crossed over state lines into Missouri. The crash occurred about a mile into Missouri, said Sgt. Shane Hux, a spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Troop H, which is investigating the crash.
The Iowa trooper had reportedly terminated the chase at state line, according to the MSHP, while the deputy from the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office continued the wrong-way pursuit across the state line.
Around mile marker 123, the Sorento allegedly crashed into a 2013 Ford Focus driving northbound while passing a 2024 Volvo semi-truck, Aistrope said. The semi then allegedly swerved to avoid the crash and struck a 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe patrol vehicle driven by the Fremont County deputy, according to the Fremont County sheriff’s release.
The Sorento burst into flames on the Nishnabotna River Bridge, and a different Fremont deputy reportedly rescued the 1-year-old child from the burning vehicle, Aistrope said. The child was flown to a hospital in Nebraska with non-life-threatening injuries.
According to the MSHP crash report, the three teens from Kearney were headed north on the highway in the Ford Focus when they were hit by the suspect under pursuit.
After the crash, one vehicle crashed into a bridge abutment before catching fire, according to the MSHP crash report. The other vehicle went off the west side of the highway and overturned, ejecting one person, before coming to rest on its roof, the report said.
An 18-year-old male was driving the Focus with two 18-year-old female passengers at the time the crash occurred, according to MSHP. Two teens were pronounced dead at the scene, and a third teen — one of the two passengers — was flown to a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, for treatment.
The driver of the Sorento that law enforcement was pursuing was also declared dead at the scene.
The semi’s driver, a 30-year-old from Ontario, Canada, was not injured.
The Fremont County deputy involved in the pursuit was treated and released from the hospital in Hamburg, Iowa.
Initial details about the crash, including who was driving each vehicle involved, differed in the preliminary crash report issued by the MSHP. The identities of the people killed have not been released by the highway patrol.
This story was originally published November 18, 2024 at 1:41 PM.
