43
Speeding car slams home; three killed
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
CAMPBELL
A car that ran into a house, killing three of the car’s four occupants at the crash scene, was likely going 80 to 90 mph at the time of impact, according to the accident investigator.
“It had to have hit that curb and went airborne,” said Detective Sgt. John Rusnak of the city police department. “The only way it could hit at a downward angle is if it was airborne,” he concluded.
After the car crashed into the house around 5 a.m. Saturday, the fourth occupant of that vehicle, a 17-year-old Campbell boy, was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center, where he remained in critical condition Saturday evening.
Two of the deceased are from Campbell and one is from Youngstown, Rusnak said. Dead are a 21-year-old woman, a 17-year-old boy and an 18- or 19-year-old man, Rusnak said.
All four had to be extricated from the car, which was eastbound on Blossom Avenue, and ran into a house at 525 Cynthia Drive, which is located where Blossom dead ends into Cynthia, said acting Campbell Fire Capt. Greg Rosile.
The owner of the brick ranch house, John Mrakusic, his girlfriend and daughter were awakened by the crash, but not injured, Rosile said. The car went underneath Mrakusic’s bedroom.
The car ran a stop sign at the east dead end of Blossom Avenue, and most likely an earlier one at Struthers-Liberty Road, to reach the speed at which it hit the house, Rusnak said, adding that there were no witnesses to the crash.
“The car appeared to have gone airborne and nose-dived into the house,” Rosile said, adding that damage to the house was extensive and electric power to it had to be shut off. “The car was buried into the house roughly up to the dashboard,” he added.
The car likely was traveling at a high rate of speed at the time of the impact, but police were not chasing it, Rosile said.
The youth taken to the hospital was a rear-seat passenger, Rosile said. A male driver and a woman were in the front seat, and two males were in the back seat, Rosile added.
No one from the Mahoning County coroner’s office was at the crash scene, Rosile said.
Rusnak said he won’t release the name of the boy at St. Elizabeth pending notification of next of kin. The identifications of the deceased are tentative and won’t be confirmed until the coroner’s office opens on Monday, he added.
The coroner, Dr. David M. Kennedy, announced April 16 that, as of this past Monday, his investigators would no longer go to death scenes, and that he was laying off one of his three investigators at the end of this month due to a cut in the coroner’s budget.
Dr. Kennedy said a body- removal service would go to death scenes and the coroner’s investigation would begin the next business day, which, in this case, will be Monday.
Tire tracks were left in the front lawn from the removal of the car from the house, Rusnak said.
Campbell and Struthers police and Campbell and Coitsville firefighters were at the scene, which was one block east of Struthers-Liberty Road near Roosevelt Park.