Two weekend car crashes leave four dead in LaFayette

A LaFayette man driving an SUV was struck Friday and died later at the hospital.

According to LaFayette Police Department reports:

On Feb. 20 around 8:37 p.m., Derek Kash Hancock was driving his 1989 Suzuki Sidekick north on the U.S. Highway 27 bypass when Marsha Renee Harris of LaFayette was driving a 2011 Chevrolet Traverse east on Grant Street and approaching the bypass.

Harris told police she stopped at the stop sign, looked both ways and did not see any vehicles coming north or south. Harris began traveling east on U.S. Highway 27 when her son yelled out to her that a vehicle was approaching.

Harris’ vehicle struck Hancock’s vehicle on the left side with the front of the Chevrolet. The Suzuki overturned onto its right side and traveled into the ditch of the east shoulder of U.S. Highway 27 on the north side of Foster Boulevard.

Hancock was transported by ambulance to the Walker County Civic Center where he was airlifted by Life Force to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, where he later died.

Harris has been charged with failure to yield. A charge of second-degree vehicular homicide is pending further investigation.

Two boys and a man died from injuries sustained in a wreck Saturday in LaFayette when their van crashed into a tree.

Alcohol was found in the vehicle, Georgia State Patrol Post 41 in LaFayette reported Sunday. According to the State Patrol: On Saturday, Feb. 18, about 5 p.m., Christopher Adam Rowles, 51, was driving a 2000 Chevrolet Venture minivan west on Ga. Highway 136 when he left the roadway while rounding a curve near the Ponder Creek Road intersection. He was traveling 55-60 mph.

The vehicle traveled about 300 feet before it crashed into a tree.

Rowles, who was not wearing seatbelt, was ejected and pronounced dead at the scene.

Blake Hunt, 5, who was seated behind the driver’s seat and was not wearing a seat belt, was also pronounced dead at the scene.

A 10-year-old boy, Brandon Hunt, was in the passenger seat and wearing a seatbelt. He underwent surgery but was pronounced dead Monday morning at Children’s Hospital of Erlanger in Chattanooga.

A cooler of alcoholic beverages was found in the vehicle, as well as a few open containers that were spilled throughout the vehicle at the time of the wreck. Toxicology testing will be conducted at the crime lab in Atlanta.