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Drivers Killed In Chain-reaction Car Accident

September 9, 2005

Two drivers were killed in a pre-dawn crash near Boca Raton on Interstate 95 after a woman reportedly stopped her SUV on the highway.

No one knows why Betty Jean Pierre slowed so drastically just south of Palmetto Park Road before the 5:40 a.m. crash. At least one witness told the Florida Highway Patrol that he thought the 1993 Ford Explorer she was driving had stopped completely just before traffic from Palmetto Park merged onto the highway.

Behind her, the driver of a 1994 Toyota hit his brakes, but a tractor-trailer behind the Toyota couldn't stop in time. The semi crushed the Toyota into the Explorer, which flipped several times. Jean Pierre, 29, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the SUV and killed. The driver of the Toyota, 25-year-old Charilus Menes of Delray Beach, also was killed. He was heading to his job at a meat-packing plant in Broward County, FHP spokesman Lt. Tim Frith said. 'An 8-foot car is now 2 1/2 feet. It's terrible,' Frith said of the wreckage.

All southbound lanes were closed until 11:17 a.m., clogging morning traffic throughout southern Palm Beach County. There were no other injuries. A Lexus that hit road debris from the crash was damaged. Boca Raton fire rescue workers used hydraulic cutters and spreaders to remove the Toyota's door and peel back its roof to get Menes out. 'It's two young people. It's definitely a tragedy, a big loss. We are very saddened over this,' fire rescue spokesman Frank Correggio said.

There are many reasons a vehicle might stop on a highway - an engine problem, a medical emergency, a failure to merge with traffic entering the highway - and FHP investigators are considering them all, Frith said. 'People do fall asleep at that time of the morning, from late nights or whatever,' he said. 'The boyfriend who owns the (Explorer) said he gave her the car to take care of errands down south.' Her boyfriend, Geremy Sylvain, told investigators that he lived with Jean Pierre in Boca Raton and that they have a child in Haiti.