A missing Kentucky man was identified as a driver who was killed in a car crash in Maryland.
Avery Smothers, 31, from Lexington, was found at the site of the crash in Cumberland on March 6, according to the Maryland State Police.
Troopers found the vehicle about 50 yards off of I-68 after a witness told them about the crash on Wednesday morning. They also found Smothers, who was declared dead at the scene.
“According to a preliminary investigation, Smothers possibly had been ejected from the vehicle, which traveled off the roadway, struck a tree, and rolled numerous times. The vehicle was not visible from the road,” police stated.
On March 3, Smothers was reported missing after leaving Kentucky on Feb. 26. Family members said to investigators that Smothers was driving to visit relatives in Maryland when he disappeared, and he was scheduled to return home for a father-daughter dance.
“Of course, things run through your mind,” Sharon Dansby, Smothers’s mom, told WKYT on March 4. “I know that it’s possible for something to be wrong, something bad.”
The father of three welcomed a newborn daughter in November 2018, according to his Facebook page.
“She has me for LIFE and I’ll to go war about that,” he said at the time.
“He’s been missing six days now and I don’t see how you can just come up missing without a trace and nobody sees you or knows anything,” Dansby said. “It’s like he vanished. Even his phone’s not tracking so I don’t know where to go from here.”
After the discovery, Shamis Talib, a family member, took to Facebook to thank people for trying to help find Smothers.
“I just really want to thank each & every one of you guys for sharing the posts, photos & news links. So many people have reached out from all over,” she wrote on Facebook.
“I know that support meant the world to Avery Smothers. He’s smiling down on us y’all. BELIEVE THAT!”
Baby Found Dead, Mother Rushed to Hospital
One day after going missing, a baby was found dead and a mother was hospitalized, Indiana authorities said.
Rachel McAfee and her 3-month-old daughter, Emma, were reported missing on the evening of March 4 by McAfee’s husband.
He told officers that his wife left the house in Indianapolis with their daughter around 7 a.m. and that she planned to drop the baby off at a babysitter’s house and go into work. However, that didn’t happen, and no one had seen her since.
Officers launched a search, but it ended when the mother and daughter were found in a vehicle that a neighbor spotted.
Police have been looking for a silver Subaru Forester. You can see a car matching that description behind the tape. Rachel’s mom says she was on her way to drop Emma off at her mother-in-law’s home and never showed up. pic.twitter.com/2ChPSBru6j
— Matthew McClellan (@mcclellantv) March 5, 2019
The neighbor alerted the police around 3 p.m. on Tuesday. At the time, the wind chill was below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
Emma was pronounced dead at the scene while McAfee was rushed to the hospital with “cold-related injuries,” officials told Fox 59.
“She’s receiving medical treatment and then—at some point if appropriate our investigators will be able to talk to her,” said Deputy Chief Chris Bailey.
While the coroner’s office will perform an autopsy on Emma to determine her cause of death, the case has been turned over to homicide detectives.
