{"id":90953,"date":"2019-12-30T21:13:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T21:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/investigation-fails-to-find-cause-of-double-fatal-crash-on-hwy-550\/"},"modified":"2019-12-30T21:13:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T21:13:09","slug":"investigation-fails-to-find-cause-of-double-fatal-crash-on-hwy-550","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/investigation-fails-to-find-cause-of-double-fatal-crash-on-hwy-550\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation fails to find cause of double-fatal crash on Hwy. 550"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado State Patrol troopers Travis Randolph, left, and Jonathan Silver investigate the scene of a two-vehicle, head-on, double-fatal crash on U.S Highway 550 near Alpen Rose RV Park. The Aug. 23 crash killed Corey Wetherell, 38, of Durango and Donald Jeter, 78, also of Durango.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

An investigation has turned up empty as to why a longtime Durango man crossed the center line of U.S. Highway 550 in August, causing a head-on crash that killed him and a mother of two.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 23, Donald Jeter, 78, was headed north on Highway 550, driving a 2006 GMC Sierra pickup.<\/p>\n

A few miles north of Durango, south of Trimble Lane (County Road 252), Jeter crossed the center line and hit<\/a> a 2012 Audi Q5, driven by Corey Wetherell, 38, of Durango. Both drivers were killed.<\/p>\n

Capt. Adrian Driscoll with the Colorado State Patrol said an exhaustive investigation was unable to find any reasons for why Jeter crossed the center line.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked into everything as best we can,\u201d Driscoll said. \u201cAnd that, unfortunately, is our conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities found no medical conditions that would have caused him to lose control of his vehicle. A toxicology report determined no drugs or alcohol were in his system. And phone records indicate Jeter was not on a call or texting at the time of the crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at a loss as to why,\u201d Driscoll said. \u201cThe only person that would know would be Don Jeter, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wetherell and her family moved from Houston to Durango in 2018, her friend Allison Roan Wall, who co-owns the Balcony Bar & Grill, said previously. Her kids were entering first and fourth grade, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a wonderful mother and wife,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to an obituary in The Durango Herald<\/em>, Wetherell was born in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cCorey had a great sense of humor with a bubbly laugh, a caring nature for those around her, and a passion and a purpose for her life,\u201d her obituary says. \u201cCorey will be greatly missed by all those who knew and loved her.\u201d<\/p>\n

A GoFundMe campaign to help the Wetherell family<\/a> raised more than $48,000 as of Monday.<\/p>\n

Jeter moved to Durango in 1978 and opened Valley Welding and Sheet Metal, now CAL Steel and Sheet Metal, according to his obituary.<\/p>\n

He was a Vietnam War veteran, served on the Durango Fire Protection District board and was a member of the San Juan Basin Shrine Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon was a tireless worker at home, the community and the shop,\u201d his obituary said.<\/p>\n

In 2019, there were three fatalities on Highway 550 from the Colorado-New Mexico state line to Silverton, Driscoll said, including Jeter and Wetherell.<\/p>\n

The other was Greg Ryder, 67, a well-known singer-songwriter in Durango who also died in a head-on crash around 6:40 a.m. April 23<\/a> near milepost 32, in the Hermosa area.<\/p>\n

In that incident, Nathaniel Andrew, 24, of Durango was driving north on Highway 550 when he ran off the right side of the road, hit a guardrail, came back across the road and hit a vehicle driven by Ryder.<\/p>\n

State Patrol investigators determined Andrew, who was then a deputy with the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office, fell asleep at the wheel of his Ford pickup on his way home from a 12-hour night shift at the La Plata County Jail. He was charged with careless driving causing death.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Judge Dondi Osborne said a plea agreement, which would have sentenced Andrew to 160 days of electronic home monitoring, was too lenient.<\/p>\n

Andrew is scheduled for a sentencing hearing Jan. 14.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August, Donald Jeter crossed center line and hit mother of 2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,993,29,254,2826,1384],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-investigation","tag-newsletter","tag-road-crash","tag-trimble","tag-u-s-highway-550"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90953"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}