A young couple in Orange County, Texas, said their vows and tied the knot, only to die moments after leaving the courtroom when their car collided with a pickup truck as they were pulling onto the highway.
According to police, 19-year-old Joe Morgan and 20-year-old Rhiannon Boudreaux Morgan were both killed in the collision that occurred on the 2300 block of Highway 87 South, on Friday, Aug. 23.
The collision occurred shortly after they departed from Justice of the Peace Joy Dubose-Simonton’s private drive, reported KFDM.
The groom’s family told reporters they were in a car behind the newlyweds and witness the horrific incident, “I was here and I watched it happen,” said Kennia Lashawna Morgan, the groom’s mother.
“I watched my baby die,” she said. “I’m still wearing my son’s blood because I was trying my best to rip him and her out of the car.
Newlyweds killed in collision only moments after weddinghttps://t.co/tn9Vvq6hZ6
— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) August 24, 2019
“I witnessed my own worst nightmare, that’s an image that will haunt me the rest of my life. I won’t forget it. It will never go away.
“I will see that truck hit my baby and kill my baby every night of my life, the rest of the time that I’m on earth,” she added.
A day that should have been a happy one for the couple and their families ended in sadness and tragedy.
“The 20th of December is when we were going to have the big ceremony with the flowers, all the friends, rest of the family, everything,” said Christina Fontenot, the groom’s sister.
The couple—said to be highschool sweethearts—died during the collision, while the man driving the pickup truck was unharmed.
“They had just gotten married,” said Morgan. “They haven’t even been married for five minutes.
”Those two babies, the only thing that they wanted was to get married and start their life. The two of them had so many dreams,” she added.
Authorities say Harley was driving a 2004 Chevrolet, when a man driving a 2015 Ford F-250 pickup truck towing a tractor while traveling south on Highway 87 collided with the car as it was exiting the private drive.
Morgan went on to say, “Go home and hug your family tonight.
HEARTBREAKING: The high school sweethearts had just left the Justice of the Peace’s office when they were hit by a truckhttps://t.co/Icnn96a9PJ
— WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) August 24, 2019
“If you have kids, go home and hug them, because now I don’t have my kid. I don’t have the one thing in my life that made me happy.
“Even if you’re mad, hug your family. Love your family. Even if they’ve made you mad, make amends. Don’t go to bed angry because you don’t know. You don’t know how fast you can lose that person.”
According to WFLA, police say the same justice of the peace that married the young couple also pronounced them dead at the scene.
The incident is currently being investigated by the Orange County Police Department Detective Division.
Another Case
Another case of Newlywed tragedy occurred earlier this year when an Eastern European woman died in Alaska while attempting to visit an abandoned bus made famous by the book and film “Into the Wild,” state troopers said.
On Thursday, July 25, Veramika Maikamava and her husband, Piotr Markielau, both 24, were hiking on the Stampede Trail in Healy, Alaska State Troopers said.
Veramika Maikamava, 24, was swept away in a river while trying to reach the abandoned bus made famous by Into the Wild book and movie. https://t.co/q8lr6vjprl
— Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) July 27, 2019
While attempting to cross the Teklanika River, Maikama of Belarus lost her footing and grip on a rope stretched across the river intended to help hikers, Ken Marsh, a spokesperson for the Alaska State Troopers, told the Anchorage Daily News.
He added that the river reaches waist-high, which makes it hard to cross.
Alaska State Troopers in Fairbanks added that the river was “running high and swift due to recent rains.”
While Markielau was able to eventually pull his wife out of the water some 75 to 100 feet downriver, she was already dead.
Her body has been sent to the state medical examiner and an investigation into the incident is ongoing, state troopers added.
Tiffany Meier contributed to this report.
