Late-night run for chips ends tragically

10-year-old Austell girl hit by pickup; two siblings unhurt.

Early Thursday morning, a 10-year-old Austell girl and her older brother and sister slipped out of their grandmother’s home to buy potato chips from a BP convenience store.

It was 3:30 a.m. Their grandmother was asleep. Their mother was working an overnight shift at a hospital. Their father, a truck driver, was traveling for work.

They’d sneaked out of the house before. But Thursday, as Kennade Patterson returned from the store, a pickup truck hit her on Maxham Road near Old Alabama Road in Douglas County and she was killed, Georgia State Patrol Sgt. Michael Land said. Her 12-year-old brother and 16-year-old sister were not injured.

“My heart went out to that poor grandma,” Land said.

Kennade was an honor student and rising fifth-grader at Annette Winn Elementary School in Lithia Springs who was involved in several academic clubs and extracurricular activities, principal Sherritta Abell said.

“We send our heartfelt sympathy to her family,” Abell said. “She will be greatly missed by the students, teachers, staff and the entire Annette Winn family.”

According to the GSP, Kennade was crossing five-lane Maxham Road from the east shoulder to the west shoulder about 5 a.m. She was not in the crosswalk and was not wearing reflective clothing.

“While still in the right, northbound lane,” the GSP said, “she was struck by a 2014 Nissan Frontier.”

The driver, Ryan Nickerson, 32, of Villa Rica suspected he hit something and stopped to call 911, the GSP told Channel 2 Action News. He was not charged.

Kennade was pronounced dead on the scene.

A strand of caution tape around the bottom of a yield sign was all that remained Thursday afternoon at the intersection, which has been the scene of other deadly accidents. In May, a 71-yearold Mableton man was killed when an Atlanta woman allegedly blew through a red light.