Woman, daughter killed in accidents half hour apart

VALLEY HEAD, Ala. — Authorities say an Alabama woman and her young daughter died in separate traffic accidents on the same highway only 30 minutes apart.

Valley Head Police Officer Ron Ogletree tells The Gadsden Times that 39-year-old Julia Yates Patterson died in a head-on crash with a pickup truck about 3 p.m. Tuesday in northeast Alabama. He says one of the vehicles crossed the centre line before the crash.

Ogletree says the woman’s 5-year-old daughter ran in front of a car and was struck and killed about 30 minutes later. Ogletree says the kindergartner had just gotten home from school and wouldn’t have known about her mother’s death.

Alabama state troopers are investigating both deaths, which occurred about 11 kilometres apart on Alabama 117.