Funeral set for Bartow County missionary killed by tractor-trailer

Kyra Karr was a UGA graduate and grew up in Cartersville. (Credit: IMB)

Kyra Karr was a UGA graduate and grew up in Cartersville. (Credit: IMB)

While the tractor-trailer driver blamed for a wreck that killed a Bartow County missionary remained in jail, the woman’s family prepared for her funeral.

Kyra Lynn Karr, 30, was killed late Thursday when her family's vehicle was hit by a runaway tractor-trailer on U.S. 41 in Emerson, according to police. Investigators believe the tractor-trailer's driver, Ivan Delgado, was under the influence of drugs when his tractor-trailer rolled and struck the Karr's pickup truck, pinning it next to a guardrail.

Karr, a married mother of three, died at the scene of the wreck. Her husband and two young daughters were taken to area hospitals after authorities pulled the trapped family from the wreckage, but were later released.

Delgado, 52, of Rome, N.Y., was arrested and charged with DUI, involuntary manslaughter, vehicular homicide and reckless conduct, police said. He remained Monday morning in the Bartow jail, where he was being held on $35,000 bond.

At the time of the crash, the Karr family was home for a temporary break between mission trips in Italy, where Kyra Karr helped refugees and women in the sex trade on the streets of Rome, according to Pastor Don Hattaway of Tabernacle Baptist Church.

“If you are looking for a person of human goodness,” Hattaway said, “I don’t think you are going to find anybody better than Kyra.”

In addition to her husband, Reid, and children Nolyn, Ellie and Livia Karr, Kyra Karr is survived by her parents, two siblings, her grandmother and mother-in-law.

Karr's family will receive friends from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Tabernacle Baptist, according to her online obituary. Her funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the church, with Hattaway and Leonardo De Chirico officiating. Interment will follow in Sunset Memory Gardens.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Tabernacle Baptist Church for the Italian Church Plant Breccia Di Roma and its ministry efforts.