MUNROE FALLS, OH. (THECOUNT) — The mother of Tyler Williams, the Akron man killed in a crash that occurred a half-hour before Thanksgiving day, is speaking out for the first time about her son’s death.
Sherry Williams, of Munroe Falls, the place her son had traveled to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday with family, says local media outlets blew it when they reported that it was her son that caused the deadly route 8 wrong-way crash.
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“It’s bad enough knowing we don’t have him, but to know that they’re placing wrong stories about him is devastating,” Williams said.
Preliminary reports say the unidentified woman, who is recovering in an area hospital, was driving the wrong way on state Route 8 when she struck a big rig and then Williams’ car head-on at 11:30 p.m., just before Thanksgiving Day.
Sherry Williams said some initial media reports blamed her son for the accident. Those inaccurate reports compounded the grief the family was suffering, she said.
It was around 6 a.m. when Williams’ received a dreaded knock at the door. The family was told to contact the Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office.
″[The police] haven’t told us anything,” Sherry Williams said. “They know it was her and [her] car that was driving the wrong way and she was going 100 miles per hour.”
Police have been unable to interview the 40-year-old woman because she is still recovering in a hospital of serious injuries suffered in the high-speed collision.
“This is an ongoing investigation,” officials said in a Tuesday presser, noting the woman has not been charged because they “Don’t know why she was going the wrong way.”
Witnesses erroneously told Beacon Journal that the driver of the car that was heading the wrong way was the one killed in the crash. That may have caused local news outlet to assume the wrong-way driver was Tyler Williams.
A traffic crash report released Tuesday said that the woman, who lives in Cuyahoga Falls, was heading northbound in a Saturn Aura in a southbound lane on state Route 8 when she struck a semi tractor-trailer and then careened into Williams’ Nissan Altima.
The driver of the semi tractor-trailer told police he was in the middle lane when he saw the headlights of the wrong-way vehicle approaching. He said he tried to perform an evasive maneuver but was unable to get out of the way.
A witness said she saw an explosion as the passenger vehicles collided and rolled over in the night.
The witness said she stopped her car and located a woman inside the flipped vehicle. She said the woman “was not able to provide any information.”
Cuyahoga Falls Police said the woman became entrapped in the vehicle and had to be extricated. She remains in a hospital with serious injuries.
An obituary for Williams said he was born in Cuyahoga Falls and was a graduate of Stow-Munroe Falls High School. He worked at Lammlein Construction.
Sherry Williams said her son’s death has been especially hard for his 11-year-old nephew.
“He was just trying to come home,” the grieving mother said.
It is unclear if any charges will be forthcoming.
TheCount.com reported on this incident hours after it occurred and we did not name Williams as the wrong-way driver.
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Geo quick facts: Munroe Falls is a city in the east-central portion of Summit County, Ohio, United States, between Stow and Tallmadge. It is a suburb of Akron and is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,012 at the 2010 census – Wikipedia.