Houstonian among 3 dead in Hill Country crash

A retired Army officer from Houston and two others died after an alleged drunken driver crashed into them head-on during a motorcycle ride in the Texas Hill Country Saturday.

Nine other motorcyclists were hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said. The victims were members of the Thin Blue Line Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club, an organization of active and retired law enforcement officers.

A vehicle crossed the center stripe on Highway 16, south of Kerrville, and mowed down the motorcyclists, the Kerr County Sheriff’s office said. Ivan Robles, 28, has been arrested and faces three counts of intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle and six counts of intoxication assault.

Killed in the crash were Jerry Wayne Harbour, of Houston, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a retired pilot for Eastern Airlines; Joseph Paglia, of Chicago, a retired police detective; and Michael White, also of Chicago, a police officer and retired Army officer, according to David Weed, a spokesman for the Thin Blue Line Foundation, a nonprofit that assists police officers and their families.

The motorcycle club was founded in 2009 so that members could “share the love of American-made motorcycles, the wind in our faces and the brotherhood of like-minded motorcyclists,” according to the club’s Facebook page.

Members were in Bandera for the club’s annual Thin Blue Line Foundation meeting, scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Harbour, Paglia, White and the others had gone on a “leisurely motorcycle ride” to have lunch in Kerrville. They were killed while driving back to Bandera.

Linda Letarte, of New Brunswick, Canada, was among the first to mourn Harbour on social media.

She and her husband, Daniel Raill, had met Harbour about nine years ago when he worked as a copilot and spent summers along the Restigouche River. Harbour’s thoughtfulness and kindness made them feel like family.

The 75-year-old was the kind of person who remembered details of acquaintances’ lives and always asked about them, Letarte said, and was much more eager to talk about his friends’ successes than his own.

And he would do almost anything for his friends.

Years after his wife Mary passed, he gave Letarte some of her collection of rare Elvis Presley albums because they were both fans. He invited Raill and others to the Lone Star Rally in Galveston, where he introduced him to dozens of friends and other members of the Thin Blue Line. He had planned to rent a house in Galveston so Letarte’s whole family could come to the rally this year.

“He made you pause, because everything that he did, there was intention with an outline of his heart around it,” Letarte said. “He was somebody that when you started to speak with him he really took an interest in you and wanted to hear your story, genuinely interested in your feelings.”

“He made you pause, because everything that he did, there was intention with an outline of his heart around it.”

Linda Letarte, friend of Jerry Wayne Harbour