Atascocita mourns two teens killed in crash
Third youth faces charges, accused of driving drunk
All day Wednesday, teenagers gathered in the median on Timber Forest Drive, a grassy, tree-filled space that runs down the middle of the four-lane Atascocita street.
They arrived alone and in groups, some carrying grocery-store bouquets of flowers. They cried and hugged one another, seeking comfort at the scene of the deadly crash that killed two of their friends early Wednesday.
The deaths of Salma Gomez and Chloe Robison, both 16 and students at Atascocita High School, sent shock waves through the northeast Harris County community. So did the arrest of their friend, 17-year-old Jaggar Clayton Smith, who was charged with two counts of intoxication manslaughter.
For all three, Tuesday night started as a simple get-together with friends. Then things went horribly, sickeningly wrong.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office believes Smith was drunk when he crashed a speeding 2008 Nissan Altima in the 18300 block of Timber Forest around midnight. Robison, who was sitting in the back right seat, died at the scene. Gomez later died from her injuries at a nearby hospital.
Smith was arrested just after he was treated for his own injuries. He walked
of jail Wednesday afternoon after posting $60,000 bond, according to the Harris County District Clerk.
The events of the night leading up to the crash are unclear, but deputies said that Smith couldn’t stay in a single lane and drove into the center median, causing the car to strike a tree and break in two. The front portion came to rest in the median, while the rear portion struck another tree.
On the median Wednesday, mourners stepped around the debris and broken glass that lay scattered on the ground.
The trunk of a nearby tree was scraped raw.
A gathering of friends
Teagan Conley, a best friend and former neighbor of Gomez, said the gathering Tuesday night was more of a “get-together” than a “wild party.”
Eight or so classmates gathered at Gomez’s house to watch the video from her quinceañera last year. Conley was invited but opted not to go.
Other students who gathered on Timber Forest on Wednesday said the party eventually moved from Gomez’s house to nearby LakeView Park.
But before they left the house, Gomez took a photo. Eight kids wedged into the frame for a group selfie in her bedroom. Gomez held the camera, beaming. Robison stuck out her tongue in a goofy smile. Smith let his lips curl into a confident, top-of-theworld smile.
Gomez posted the photo to her Snapchat story and called it “a reunion photo” — a quick shot to celebrate what should have been a pretty ordinary summer night.
All three of the teens were incoming juniors at Humble ISD schools, spokeswoman Jamie Mount said. Robison and Gomez attended Atascocita High School, and Smith attends Kingwood High School.
Gomez was “funny, incredibly smart, a great friend,” her friend Conley said. “She always told me what I needed to hear for my own good. She was one of a kind.”
Dallas Rice, 16, said she’s known the girls since their days at Timberwood Middle School. Robison, she said, was “insanely intelligent.”
Kyra Ivy, also 16, said she and Robison were best friends in middle school and bonded over a shared Justin Bieber obsession. She said they lost their strong connection as they transitioned into high school but met up last month to catch up.
“She was so funny and happy and sweet,” Ivy said.
At the scene
Timber Forest Drive, a fourlane street divided by a treefilled median, is a major northsouth thoroughfare in the Atascocita area, where housing developments are broken up by blocks of businesses.
At an Ace Hardware store near the crash scene Wednesday, employees said drivers regularly speed down Timber Forest, even though the speed limits are 40 mph and lower. And employee Taylor Gramlich, who graduated from Atascocita High School in 2017, said she used to see high-schoolers drinking and driving when she was in school and still sees them now.
Shattered Dreams, a program that aims to show students the consequences of drunken driving through a dramatic crash simulation, visited Atascocita High in 2016. But despite the simulations and this real tragedy, Gramlich said they never seem to get the message.
“A week from now they’ll go to a party and drink,” she said.
By the afternoon, almost 20 bouquets lined around a tree in the median, where the crash occurred.
One classmate, Camille Turk, said she looked up to Gomez, who was a close friend on the school’s tennis team.
“She was amazingly daring and this vibrant life and so so gorgeous,” Turk said. “And she cared and tried hard.”
Incoming juniors Halle Sonnier, Lauren Farrar, Grayson McMillan and Avery Wagnon called the girls reliable and honout est “good people.”
They also said they knew Smith, who was a close friend of both victims.
They said they didn’t know what he, Robison and Gomez would have been doing out at the time of the crash.
“It was just one mistake, and he’ll have to pay the consequence for it in the worst way, unfortunately,” Farrar said.
“He has to live with that,” McMillan added.
Millie Ervin is a district substitute teacher for Humble ISD. She said she didn’t know the teenagers affected by the crash but felt compelled to visit the memorial and pay her respects.
She walked from the Ace Hardware parking lot out to the median to take a photo of the tree clothed in neatly-wrapped bouquets.
“It just breaks my heart,” Ervin said. “I pray for the young man just as much as the girls. His journey will be marked forever.”
A somber vigil
Just before sunset Wednesday, about 150 people gathered for a candlelight vigil at the site of the crash.
Nearly 50 bouquets had been placed on the median by then, along with a cross, rosaries and large photos of Gomez and Robison.
Students, parents and relatives stood in a circle in the median, heads bowed, while others filled the parking lots nearby. They hugged, prayed and wiped tears from their eyes. A single loud sob broke the silence.
The street had reopened, and cars rushed by on either side of the median.
Employees from a nearby ice cream shop walked over with trays, offering free scoops to the distraught observers.
And as the sky grew dark, mourners quietly placed candles around the makeshift memorial, saying goodbye to their friends.