NTSB: Dad, not boy, was driving truck that hit golfers’ van

The Associated Press

2 years ago

FILE - Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers look over the scene of a fatal car wreck early on March 16, 2022, half of a mile north of State Highway 115 on Farm-to-Market Road 1788 in Andrews County, Texas, where a pickup truck crossed the center line of a two-lane road in Andrews County, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of the New Mexico state line on Tuesday evening and crashed into a van carrying members of the University of the Southwest men's and women's golf teams, said Sgt. Steven Blanco of the Texas Department of Public Safety. The father of a 13-year-old boy, not the teen, was driving a pickup that struck the team's van federal officials said on Thursday, July 14 . (Eli Hartman/Odessa American via AP, File)

DALLAS (AP) — A Texas man, not his 13-year-old son, was driving the pickup truck that crossed into the oncoming lane and struck a van carrying New Mexico college golfers, killing nine people, and he had methamphetamine in his system, investigators said Thursday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said two days after the March 15 collision that its preliminary findings suggested that the 13-year-old was driving the pickup that struck the van carrying University of the Southwest students and coaches back to New Mexico from a golf tournament. But the NTSB said Thursday that DNA testing confirmed that the father, 38-year-old Henrich Siemens, was driving and that toxicological testing showed the presence of methanphetamine in the Siemens’ blood.

Siemens and his son died in the crash along with six members of the men’s and women’s golf teams and their coach.

The collision happened in Andrews County, which is about 30 miles east of Texas’ border with New Mexico. Although it’s a rural area, the roads there can often be busy with traffic related to agriculture and oil and gas development.

FILE – A golfer drives by a makeshift memorial at the Rockwind Community Links, on March 16, 2022, in Hobbs, New Mexico. The memorial was for student golfers and the coach of University of the Southwest killed in a crash in Texas. The father of a 13-year-old boy, not the teen, was driving a pickup that struck the team’s van federal officials said on Thursday, July 14. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)