U.S. 13 crash claims two lives

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, June 6, 2006

WINDSOR – For the third consecutive Sunday, traveling on a Roanoke-Chowan roadway has turned deadly.

The latest accident claimed two lives Sunday morning on U.S. 13 just north of the Buena Vista community.

John Thomas Williams, 60, of Windsor was killed when he lost control of a 1997 Plymouth Neon he was operating. His vehicle was struck by a 2003 Volkswagen operated by Danny Speller, 21, of Windsor.

An unidentified passenger in Williams’ vehicle was also killed.

Speller was injured. He was taken to Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greenville. There, a hospital spokesperson said Speller was treated and released.

Williams’ vehicle was traveling south on U.S. 13 at the time of the 10:57 a.m. accident. Speller’s vehicle was traveling north.

According to a report filed by North Carolina State Highway Patrol Trooper Steve Dail, Williams apparently lost control of his vehicle after running off the right side of the road. Dail’s report showed that Williams attempted to regain control, but allegedly overcorrected. The vehicle then re-entered the roadway, crossed the centerline sideways and was struck, in the passenger’s side door, by Speller’s vehicle.

The double fatality brings the number to 13 of those killed on Bertie, Gates or Hertford County roads since Jan. 1.

Two of those fatalities occurred on the previous two Sundays.

On May 21, Crystal Ziglar of Montgomery, Ala. lost her life in a single-car accident on U.S. 17 near Midway, also in Bertie County.

Exactly one week later (Sunday, May 28), Judy Lynn Talley of Newport News, Va. was killed when the vehicle in which she was a passenger was struck head-on by another vehicle. That accident occurred on U.S. 258 just north of Murfreesboro.