Texas Truck Crash Death Toll Grows to 14 [Video]
Authorities in Texas continue the difficult task of attempting to identify 14 suspected illegal immigrants who were killed when a pickup truck packed with nearly two dozen people veered off a highway and crashed into trees in South Texas during an apparent smuggling run.
According to Fox News, a Texas Department of Public Safety accident reconstruction team was investigating the cause of the Sunday evening crash in Goliad County, about 150 miles northeast of the border with Mexico.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said that among the 11 men and three females who died were citizens of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
“It’s the worst single-vehicle wreck I’ve worked in my 40 years in the funeral business,” said Adrian Fulton, a local funeral home director who picked up the 11 people who died at the scene.
Fulton told the KY Post that the ages of the deceased ranged from 8 to 30 and added that Homeland Security Investigations agents came Monday to photograph and fingerprint the dead.
The driver was among the 11 found dead at the scene but investigators have yet to determine his identity.
Including the driver, six of those who died in the crash were still inside the cab of the mangled vehicle and one more remained in the truck’s bed when emergency crews arrived at the scene, according to authorities.
Others were scattered on the roadway and in a ditch between the pavement and a fence line where the truck stopped.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the truck was registered in Houston to someone other than the driver.
The AP has more on the tragic Texas truck crash in the following video:
