Jessiah Plemons and Lillian Rose Tennessee newlyweds killed in crash 2 days after wedding after truck strikes couple and third person standing by side of road after previous crash.
A Tennessee newly wed couple was killed when a truck mowed them down on the highway after their own vehicle was involved in a separate collision, authorities said.
Jessiah Plemons, 31, and Lillian Rose, 25, had only been married for two days when they were killed along with Madison Davis, 23, as they were waiting outside their disabled pickup truck early Sunday on Interstate 40 in Knoxville, WATE reported.
Police said the trio had been traveling off the exit ramp in their Dodge pickup around 3 a.m. when the vehicle struck a guardrail.
The group got out and stood beside the Dodge when a Chevrolet truck struck all of them and their vehicle, police said.
The three were pronounced dead at the scene, while the driver of the Chevrolet was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
‘It’s every mother’s nightmare’
Plemons and Rose’s loved ones said they were devastated to lose them so shortly after they eloped on Friday.
‘I think that’s what made it harder, is the fact that she was the happiest she’d ever been and it got taken away from her,’ Rose’s cousin, August McClelland, told the outlet.
Family members said that the couple decided to elope — and kept their decision a secret until sharing the good news on social media.
Plemons’ mother said she didn’t have a chance to celebrate with the couple.
‘Next thing you know, I get a knock on my door. And it’s just, it’s every mother’s nightmare. Every mother’s nightmare,’ Michelle Plemons said.
‘Jess was a great person,’ Milea Effler wrote in a GoFundMe organized to help raise funds for her brother’s burial.
‘Many of you know how Jess struggled with his early life but was finally reborn out of addiction and had his life on track,’ Effler continued. ‘He had taken in my niece and nephew as his own and decided they would have a better life.’
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
