Police investigating UA student deaths

Police in Missouri and Oklahoma are still investigating two separate accidents that took the lives of three University of Arkansas students earlier this week.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol had originally said Solomon T. Simpson, 19, of Fayetteville had “exited a moving vehicle” while traveling late Wednesday night on Interstate 44 in Laclede County, Mo., moments before a truck struck him as he lay on the roadway.

By late Friday afternoon, the investigation had found that Simpson, a Fayetteville campus sophomore, had been sleeping in the back seat of a westbound 2007 Honda Accord when he suddenly awoke, jumped into the front seat and then out the passenger side of the car, falling to the pavement at 11:20 p.m. Wednesday, said Sgt. Dan Crain, spokesman for Missouri State Highway Patrol.

No foul play is suspected, he said. The Accord’s driver, Tevin D. Whitney, 18, of Fayetteville and the other passenger told investigators they tried unsuccessfully to stop Simpson.Whitney is also a UA sophomore, according to the school’s student directory.

“They indicated that he was asleep, he woke up … he, for whatever reason, he climbed to the [front] seat and then jumped out,” Crain said.

One minute later, Crain said, a westbound 2013 Freightliner Century truck driven by Donald P. Clayton, 62, of Winder, Ga., struck Simpson, who was lying in the roadway.

Two incident reports that the Missouri agency issued about Simpson falling to the pavement and being hit by the truck don’t mention a third passenger in the Accord, and Crain didn’t have the third person’s name Friday. Its reports list only the driver and anyone injured or killed, he said.

Also Friday, Oklahoma authorities still had no new answers about what led to a skiboat crash Tuesday evening that killed two UA students on northeast Oklahoma’s Grand Lake. Rachel Nichole Swetnam of Grove, Okla., and William Lewis “Trey” Varner III of Texarkana, Ark., passengers on a 22-foot Cobalt ski boat, died when the boat collided with an unoccupied houseboat docked at Arrowhead Yacht Club in the Duck Creek arm of the lake.

“No final determination on crash cause yet,” said Justin Alberty, a spokesman for the Grand River Dam Authority said by e-mail late Friday afternoon. “Still under investigation.”

Police were still trying to determine whether alcohol use or speeding contributed to the crash, he said.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 16 on 05/18/2013

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