Brighton Man Operating Vehicle at High Speed
3-Car Accident Fatal
A three-car tangle on Route 13, just north of Springfield, at 9:45 o'clock last night resulted in death of one man and serious injuries to two others.
Killed in the crash was Alonzo Joseph Reeves, 29, Route 1, Brighton. He was the fourth person in Decemer, the 175th in 1959, to die in traffic accidents in the Ozarks.
Troopers said the grinding crash occurred when Reeves, apparently driving his 1947 Dodge at high speed and on the wrong side of the highway, sideswiped a 1957 Mercury driven by Guy Burlin Hefley, 27, Humansville, even though the latter swerved almost into the ditch trying to avoid a collision. Reeves' out-of-control auto then careened into a 1956 Buick driven by the Rev. Donald Edward McGehee, 28, pastor of a Baptist church at Quebec, Okla., and demolished the latter vehicle.
The Rev. McGehee and a passenger, James Eli Routh, 56, Route 5, whom the minister had been visiting were rushed to Burge Hospital; the former, in critical condition today, suffering from head and internal injuries; the latter, in serious condition suffering from head and posible internal injuries and shock.
Routh is the owner of a harware store on West Commercial. Greene County Coroner Ralph Thieme, who said no inquest will be held in the fatality, reported damage to the vehicles was so extensive it looked "more like a plane crash" than a traffic accident.
Reeves, pinned in the wreckage of his old-model auto, was freed after force was used to open a wedged door. His face was so badly mangled troopers reported, that he was only tentatively identified until an uncle, John Reeves, Route 2, Willard, positively made identification. Reeves had been living with a sister, Mrs. Betty Fender, Route 1, Brighton.
Reeves, a mason, is survived by his estranged wife, Patricia, Los Angelos; two sons and three daughters; his father Alonzo, Brighton; his mother, Mrs. Maude Reeves, 2738 West Walnut; three bothers, Chester, 1129 Nichols, Glenn and Harley, both of Long Beach, Calif.; and two sisters, Mrs. Fender and Mrs. John Anhalt, 2143 West Elm.
Funeral arrangements are under direction of Klingner.
