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No criminal charges in fatal church van crash

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Tuesday that no criminal charges will be filed in a church van crash two weeks ago that killed two people.

Posted Updated

By
Matthew Burns
, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor
WAKE FOREST, N.C. — Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Tuesday that no criminal charges will be filed in a church van crash two weeks ago that killed two people.

A church van from First Missionary Baptist Church of Smithfield was southbound on N.C. Highway 96 on May 20 when it struck a deer in the road near Barham Siding Road, authorities said. The van then side-swiped a Toyota van before colliding head-on with a Dodge SUV.

The van and the SUV wound up in a swampy area off the side of the highway.

"There is a car in the water, and there is a van that flipped. They hit a deer," one woman told a 911 dispatcher.

"A deer came out and almost hit the pickup truck in front of me, and a van hit me … and it flipped," a second woman told a dispatcher. "We need help out here."

William Henderson Clayton
Deborah Powell

The driver of the SUV, 62-year-old Deborah Powell of Roxboro, and a passenger in the church van, William Henderson Clayton, 84, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Twelve others in the church van were injured.

At the time of the crash, church members were returning from the Johnston District Missionary Baptist Association meeting, a conference of at least five other churches, held at the Central Children’s Home of North Carolina in Oxford. Church leaders said members also met with some children at the facility for dependent, neglected or abused children and donated supplies during their visit.

Powell was on her way home after visiting her hospitalized father.

Wake County led the state with 730 animal-related crashes in 2016, most of them involving deer, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Deer are more likely to be active near roads around dusk and dawn, the times they are hardest to see, and they travel in groups, authorities said.

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