Four members of a Douglas County family that lived near Parker were killed when their sport utility vehicle was hit head-on by a wrong-way driver on a Texas highway at daybreak Sunday.
The Wichita Falls, Texas, Times Record News identified the family as Robert Behn, 45; his wife, Lisa, 48; son Jordan, 18; and daughter Morgan, 15.
A spokesperson for the family could not be found Sunday evening, and there was no answer at their home on Sawdust Loop in Parker.
A family friend told 9News the family was coming home from a baseball tournament in Dallas.
Their 2006 Hummer H-3 was headed north on U.S. 287 about 13 miles east of Vernon, near the Texas-Oklahoma border, when it was hit by a southbound 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe driven by Spencer Joe Risinger, 38, of Wichita Falls.
Risinger also died as both vehicles exploded, witnesses told the paper.
Department of Public Safety Trooper Curtis West said alcohol may have been a factor in the cause of the wreck.
Witnesses said Risinger was headed north but made a U-turn and went the wrong way down the same lane of the divided four-lane highway.
“When the vehicles hit, flames went sky high instantly,” said Paul Koester, who said he was about a quarter of a mile away.
Tibbie Neal, a truck driver from Atlanta, said Risinger “was swerving all over the highway, driving at a high rate of speed. I had to swerve to miss him.
“I looked in my rearview mirror and couldn’t see anything but fire.”
