(RepublicanInformer.com)- Last week, the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office released the details of its investigation into the car accident that killed Indiana Republican Congresswoman Jackie Walorski and three others in early August.
According to investigators, the crash was caused after the staffer driving the SUV attempted to pass a flatbed truck and crashed into an oncoming car.
A witness who had been driving behind the SUV told accident investigators that it sped up, crossed the centerline of the two-lane highway, pulling into the path of an oncoming car when the crash happened.
According to the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office, airbag control module data in the SUV, driven by 27-year-old Zachery Potts who was killed in the crash, revealed that the SUV was traveling at 77 mph at the time it struck the oncoming vehicle.
Investigators found no indication of mechanical failures in either vehicle nor was there any evidence that either driver was using a cell phone at the time of the crash. Instead, the investigation found that Potts was responsible for “driving left of center with a contributing factor of excessive speed.”
Congresswoman Walorski, 58, was first elected to the House in 2012 and was seeking a sixth term in office. Also killed in the August 3 crash were Emma Thomson, 28, Walorski’s communications director, and Edith Schmucker, 56, the driver of the other vehicle.
Republican officials chose Elkhart company executive Rudy Yakym, a longtime ally of Walorski, to replace her on the November ballot.
