There was a large bang followed by a jingling sound. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped. Mary Caughorn knew there had been a crash.
“It’s nothing unusual to have my mailbox knocked over,” Caughorn said.
But as she stepped onto the front porch of her Austell home around 4 a.m. Monday, Caughorn wasn’t prepared for what she saw. An SUV was wrapped around her giant Mulberry tree, the one she’d planted as a sapling 45 years earlier. The sounds she now heard were the cries of children, pleading for their parents.
“It was horrible,” Caughorn said Monday afternoon. “I keep hearing it in my head.”
Shortly before 4 a.m., a green Honda Passport fishtailed along Clay Road before leaving Clay Road and slamming into Caughorn’s tree. Investigators had not determined late Monday what caused the driver, 27-year old Katrina E. Morris, to lose control of the vehicle. Morris was killed in the crash, along with her front-seat passenger and the father of her three children, 28-year-old Rodney Smith.
Family members believe Morris and Smith and four children — all in the backseat — were traveling to her home in Powder Springs at the time of the crash, which happened near the intersection with Flint Hill Road. The Honda came to a stop after slamming into the tree and into a flower bed under its shady branches. Police said Monday it wasn’t known whether the four children were properly restrained, but two were in car seats, witnesses said.
Across the street, Arthur House was in his own SUV, ready to leave for his construction job, when he heard tires squealing. House said the SUV was going about 45 mph and didn’t slow down as it went up a curb and into the tree. He and his brother-in-law immediately ran to help.
“When we walked up, the driver was gone, there was no question,” House said.
At first, House said Smith was still breathing, but the force of the crash had been too strong. There was nothing House nor others could do for the adults, so he and his brother-in-law focused on the children, pulling the two youngest, ages 1 and 3, from their car seats. House’s girlfriend, Kira Fearon, was still shaken hours later as she talked about the rush of ambulances, firefighters and police that arrived within minutes of the crash.
“I’m devastated this happened,” Fearon said.
As police and firefighters arrived, neighbors stepped aside to let the rescue continue. Both a 10-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl were temporarily trapped in the wreckage, but both were freed from the SUV and put onto stretchers. All of the children were alert, but shaken, and all were expected to survive, Smith’s cousin, Tonetta Castleberry, said Monday afternoon.
DeRodney, 10, and Yanni, 5, both underwent leg surgeries at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite, Castleberry said. Aiden, 3, was in intensive care, but in stable condition, she said. One-year-old Amani had no visible injuries or bruises but was being kept at the hospital for observation.
Smith, the father of 11, had just visited her mother’s home Sunday, but Castleberry wasn’t there to see him. Later, he and Morris and the four children had gone to a Father’s Day barbecue, but family members were unsure why the group was driving home in the early-morning hours.
“He’s not a cousin I see once or twice a year,” Castleberry said. “I see him often. It’s really unbelievable. It really feels like a dream.”
Morris, who attended McEachern High School, first met Smith about 10 years ago, a family member said. Friends and family members posted notes on Facebook, shocked by news of her death.
“I can’t stop crying or shaking,” one friend wrote. “Dear God why?????”
Later Monday morning, Caughorn watched as her son, Danny, painted wood glue onto the damaged trunk of her Mulberry tree to help prevent it from splitting. A portion of a small, stone retaining wall had been knocked over in the crash, scattering dirt and flowers around the base of the tree. With a little landscaping and replanting, the flower bed will bloom again. But Caughorn’s eyes watered as her thoughts went back to the wreck.
“They’re going to have to grow up with those memories,” she said. “Those babies will grow up with mommy and daddy gone.”
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