Survivor of fatal Warren crash says he thinks car was traveling 80 mph

WARREN — One of the surviving occupants of the vehicle that overturned in a pond along Niles-Warren River Road on Sunday morning, killing six teens, said it felt like the 19-year-old driver was going 80 miles per hour just before the wreck.

Asher C. Lewis, 15, of Howland, told an investigator he and Brian K. Henry, 18, got a ride in a sport utility vehicle at a house on Maple Street Southwest.

Alexis S. Cayson, 19, and five boys age 14 and 15, three of whom Lewis knew, were already inside.

Just before the car wrecked into a guardrail and flipped into the pond about a mile south of downtown Warren, Cayson seemed to be “playing around,” Lewis said.

“She was swerving and speeding. I think she was driving on purpose like that, but I’m not sure why,” he said. “It felt like she was driving like 80 [mph].”

Cayson, of 7th Street Southwest, had taken the car without the permission of its owner, and she was driving without a license, authorities say.

Henry and Lewis were the only occupants to survive. They both said they blacked out from the impact but woke up and escaped through a window that Henry broke out with his elbow.

For the complete story, read Wednesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com