CANTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Fourteen-year-old Jessica Sadler wanted to go to the beach with her boyfriend on a warm summer day, but her mother said no, absolutely not. She had better come home or she would be in big trouble.
Jessica never made it home.
She and the four young men with her in a car were killed Thursday when the driver — a 19-year-old with a suspended license — sped around a lowered railroad crossing gate and past the flashing warning lights in an attempt to beat a train. The car was broadsided.
Tammy Sadler, who had been mad at her daughter for spending the night at a friend’s house without calling to tell her, recalled her final conversation with Jessica, less than an hour before the wreck.
“She asked me what I was doing. I told her I was watching TV, told her she was going to be in trouble for not being here. She said, ‘Can I go to the beach?’ I said no,” Sadler said Friday, her voice breaking. “She said, ‘We’ll just grab a bite to eat, then I’ll be home,’ and I said, ‘OK.’ . . . She didn’t make it.”
On a surveillance video released by police, the car never slowed as it approached the crossing about 20 miles west of Detroit.
The car drove right past a stopped sport utility vehicle, just before the Amtrak train rushed through about 12:30 p.m.
Canton Township police awaited toxicology tests on the driver and the other victims.
The young man behind the wheel, Dan Broughton, had a number of traffic violations on his record, including speeding and running a stop sign.
