After 18-year-old Jake Whitting graduated from high school Saturday, he kicked off his summer vacation with a trip to Colorado, accompanied by three friends from school.
The trip ended in tragedy Tuesday after Whitting while on Foxton Road near Conifer. It rolled off an embankment and landed in a creek.
Whitting, from Glen Head, N.Y., and two of his passengers were dead at the scene.
They were identified as John Yoder, 19, of Denver, and Akinwumi “AJ” Ricketts, 16, from Nigeria.
A third passenger, Marshall Otter, a 17-year-old from Kansas, was transported to a hospital with serious injuries. He is expected to survive.
Officials from the boys’ school, St. John’s Military School in Salina, Kan., said the entire community was in mourning following the news.
“The St. John’s community of cadets, parents and alumni is a small and tightly bound family,” school officials said in a released statement. “The loss of these three outstanding young men has left an emptiness that can never be filled.”
Whitting had graduated from the Episcopalian, all-boys boarding school on Saturday as a valedictorian. He had received a varsity letter for academics among other awards.
He had also been a star player for the school’s football team. Whitting had been named offensive player of the year.
Ricketts, Yoder and Otter were juniors planning to return to St. John’s this fall for their senior years.
On social media, friends remembered the three dead teens as “always keeping a positive attitude and spreading smiles,” and lamented that they would have had “very bright futures ahead of them.”
The State Patrol is investigating the wreck. Authorities believe alcohol or drugs may be involved.
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372, yrobles@denverpost.com or @yeseniarobles
