Officials ID 8 victims of fiery Kansas crash, including Missouri family, youth sports team
Officials have identified the eight people killed in a head-on collision on U.S. Highway 169 south of Kansas City Sunday and detailed what they believe happened in the moments before the fatal crash.
The crash happened along U.S. Highway 169 near its intersection with Virginia Road in Franklin County, south of Kansas City, around 5:45 p.m. when the driver of a Yukon XL headed south attempted to pass a slower vehicle and moved into the northbound lanes, according to a crash report from the Kansas Highway Patrol.
A Subaru Legacy was heading north at the time, and both vehicles attempted to avoid each other and collided head-on in the highway shoulder, troopers said. Both vehicles caught fire.
Four people in the Subaru were killed in the collision, which authorities said included members of a Missouri family from Chesterfeld, a St. Louis suburb.
The driver of the Subaru was identified as 37-year-old Alexander R. Ernst, of Ames, Iowa. The passengers in the vehicle were identified as Chesterfield residents: 33-year-old Madalyn N. Elliott, 76-year-old John D. Elliott, and 69-year-old Norleen L. Elliott.
The five people in the Yukon SUV were connected to a youth sports team from the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area. Four of them died, authorities said, including two high schoolers and two coaches. They were all part of a group with an Amateur Athletic Union, or AAU, youth basketball team from Tulsa, according to a state representative from Tulsa.
The driver of the Yukon was identified as 33-year-old Jaimon D. Gilstrap, of Tulsa. The other occupants were identified as 14-year-old Kyron Gilstrap, of Tulsa, 14-year-old Donald Laster, of Tulsa, and 41-year-old Wayne T. Walls, of Talala. A 15-year-old boy, also from Talala, was taken to Overland Park Regional Medical Center for treatment of suspected minor injuries, the report said.
