TAOS, NM. (THECOUNT) — A shocking and heartbreaking twist to the double-fatal Taos, New Mexico crash involving country singer Kylie Rae Harris after we are learning the first responder who arrived on scene, found his own daughter, Maria Elena Cruz, inside the crashed vehicle.
San Cristóbal Volunteer Fire Department Deputy Chief Pedro Cruz raced to the scene of the northern New Mexico crash on Wednesday to find his 16-year-old daughter Maria Elena Cruz was killed, KRQE reported.
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“He’s also an EMT, so he’s no stranger to going out on calls both medical, crashes and other things, but very traumatic for him to not know but to respond anyway and then find it was his family member,” Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe, according to CairnsPost.
Betsy Cowan, the mother of deceased country singer, Kylie Rae Harris, is speaking out about the crash that killed her daughter last week in New Mexico.
While speaking with People, Cowan revealed that her daughter “struggled with alcohol.”
Officials have said that Harris, 30, was responsible for the crash and added that alcohol may have been a factor. A teenager was also killed in the violent collision.
Cowan said that “drinking was something [Kylie] struggled with on-and-off over the years.”
She also alleged that Harris may have been exhausted and not necessarily under the influence of alcohol.
“If you’ve ever had to take defensive driving, they say sleep deprivation, emotions and alcohol are the top three contributors to most wrecks,” Cowan told People magazine. “And so any one of those things could have done it… She had driven 11 or 12 hours that day, and I’m sure that she was exhausted and she was emotionally exhausted. And I think we all know what that does to you,” reports TheEpochTimes.
High school student Maria Elena Cruz was also killed in the fatal Taos, New Mexico, car crash.
Cruz, 16, died in the three-vehicle crash last Wednesday night in Taos, New Mexico. Local paper Taos News stated that both Cruz and Harris were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash, however indicated the singer may have been at fault in the crash.
“At this time I will say with most certainty that Miss Cruz was an innocent victim of this senseless crash caused by Ms. Harris,” Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said in a statement to people.
The singer tragically died in a car accident on Sept. 4, 2019, according to reports.
Harris, 30, was killed in a crash one day before she was scheduled to perform at the Big Barn Dance Music Festival in Taos, New Mexico.
While on a road trip in northern New Mexico, the young artist was involved in a three-vehicle crash on State Road 522 near the city of Taos; a 16-year-old driver also died as a result of the crash.
The Texas singer-songwriter knew she wanted to be a singer after singing in her church’s choir. She wrote her first song when she was only 14 years old and knew that music would always play an important role in her life, reports WesternJournal.
One of the songs on her latest EP, released in March 2019, featured the song “Twenty Years From Now,” which she wrote as a prayer for her 6-year-old daughter Corbie. She told Billboard that it was the most important song she’d ever written.
Geo quick facts: Taos is a town in northern New Mexico’s high desert, bounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It’s known for historic adobe buildings such as Taos Pueblo, a multistory adobe complex inhabited by Native Americans for centuries. A longtime artist colony, Taos also offers many galleries and museums showcasing regional artwork, including the Harwood Museum of Art and the Taos Art Museum – wikipedia.