Kyrie Alassen Anderson was in the hospital with a broken neck Friday. Her 7-month-old son and her 19-year-old friend were dead - victims, police said, of a drag race gone bad.
The 22-year-old Madison woman’s Honda Accord crashed around midnight Thursday on I-20 in Covington, east of Atlanta. The State Patrol said Anderson was racing another car, lost control and clipped a passing truck.
Her mother says there was no race and that she wasn’t driving the car.
The State Patrol said late Friday no charges had been filed and it was still investigating the case.
“Any charges will be considered once all of the facts have been collected,” the GSP emailed The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Anderson’s mother, Shawna Tallon, tried to sooth herself Friday with memories of a grandson, Hunter, whom she described as happy child who almost never cried.
“He was a good little boy,” a sobbing Tallon, 41, told Channel 2 Action News. “He always played, always smiled.”
Also killed in the wreck was Edi Rodriguez, of Covington, who was described as Anderson’s boyfriend.
State Patrol officials said Anderson was racing another car on I-20 westbound near Salem Road in Rockdale County when she lost control and hit a guardrail. The Honda then traveled back across the westbound lanes, and was hit by a Chevrolet pickup truck, state patrol spokesman Gordy Wright said.
Two men in the pickup truck — driver Jody Shane Richardson, 34, and passenger Terry Lee Chaney, 48 — were also injured.
“The other driver believed to be involved with racing the Honda has been identified and will be interviewed during the follow-up investigation,” Wright said.
Tallon told Channel 2 after visiting her daughter in the hospital that Rodriguez was driving and nobody was racing.
The accident, she said, happened when the pickup changed lanes and clipped them. She said Rodriguez tried to get her daughter and grandson out of the car but another car hit and killed them. She described her daughter as inconsolable over Hunter’s death. She said her daughter was a good mother to both her sons.
“She’s miserable. She wants to see her baby,” Tallon said. “I don’t know how to make that happen.”
About the Author
