PARKVILLE, Mo. – On May 3, 2008, a driver who had twelve people in a seven-passenger van somehow lost control and shattered this otherwise quiet rural area in Ray County, Mo.
This was Chris Chenier’s front lawn.
“The little girl that passed away- I knew that she was dead when I got to her, she uh- she broke her neck I think,” Chenier said that day in 2008.
Four people were injured and three people died including 11 year-old Jeannie Gholson, Amy Helden, and Austin Schupman.
Five years later, the grief is still fresh for Anita Schupman, Austin’s mother.
“I worry that I’m going to forget how he sounds, you know, and I just miss him so much,” she said.
Bobbi Martin lost her cousins that day- Amy and her daughter, Jeannie.
“She never gets a chance to go to high school, go to any dances,” Bobbi said.
She says she lives near the crash site, and she still can’t go near it.
“There’s no way for me to put in words the full impact of what that day meant,” she explained.
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