From left to right: Sarah Hammond, 21, Rebekah Blakkolb, 20, and Christina Goyett, 19.
Three Alpha Xi Delta sisters from Bowling Greek State University, aged 19 to 21, were killed on Friday in a wrong-way accident on their way to the airport for Spring Break.
The accident happened several miles from their university around 2:30 am. The wrong way driver, 69-year-old Winifred D. Lein was pronounced dead on the scene as well. She was driving on the wrong side of the divided highway and police radio traffic indicated that she had been headed in the wrong direction for at least seven miles.
“I don’t think the college girls ever saw it coming. There was nothing they could have done to avoid the crash,” Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said in an interview with the NY Daily News.
Sixteen Alpha Xi Delta sisters were headed to the Detroit airport to make their 5:30 am flight to the Dominican Republic. Other cars narrowly missed Lein’s vehicle, but three women were not so lucky. Killed were Rebekah Blakkolb, 20, a junior from Aurora, Ohio; Christina Goyette, 19, a sophomore from Bay City, Michigan who was studying teacher education; and Sarah Hammond, 21, a junior from Yellow Springs, Ohio who was majoring in apparel merchandising.
Bowling Green students left flowers at the Alpha Xi Delta sorority house. Members of the sorority refused to speak to reporters.