The parents of a 4-year-old boy were both killed in separate car crashes just hours apart Friday after the mother slammed into a culvert and her fiancé hit a tree racing to her crash scene, cops said.
Alexus Lee and John “JR” Collins, who were engaged and shared the toddler, were both pronounced dead at the scenes of their respective predawn crashes around Baton Rouge, Louisiana State Police said.
“I love them and I’m gonna miss both of them and I’m gonna find the strength to go ahead,” Collins’ father Arthur Collins told WAFB.
Lee, 25, was behind the wheel of a 2013 Toyota Highlander on LA 67 around 2 a.m. when the SUV veered off the road and barreled into a culvert, turning the car upside down, police said.
When Collins, 35, was called about the fatal crash, he reportedly hopped in his 2016 Chevrolet Camaro to race to the scene, but lost control of his car as he attempted to go around a curve, authorities said.
His car also left the roadway on LA 67 and smashed into a tree, throwing him from the vehicle.
Neither Lee and Collins was wearing a seatbelt, according to cops.
“He loved Alexus as well as everybody else who knew her,” Collins’ mother, Sandra Collins, told WAFB. “To know her was to love her.”
The couple was supposed to get married in February 2026 and leave behind their toddler, Gabriel.
“He understands what happened, and he’s just having a little problem comprehending that we can’t talk to them,” Sandra Collins heartbreakingly told the station as she vowed the two families would take care of him.
“We can’t see them, but he understands that they are asleep and are with God.”
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