19-year-old Taunya Freeman was killed in a five-car pileup that claimed the lives of three people on Saturday morning.
FORT WORTH, Texas — As they sat side by side, Donald Freeman III and his mother, Taunya Sims, mourned the loss of his daughter, 19-year-old Taunya Freeman.
The teenager, who was named after her grandmother, was among the three people killed in a five-vehicle pileup on Saturday morning.
According to the Fort Worth Police Dept., officers responded to a major crash at around 4:03 a.m. Saturday morning in the 700 block of Risinger Rd. FWPD said multiple vehicles were involved in the crash.
“It was horrible,” Sims said.
The family waited several hours before they learned of the 19-year-old’s death. In the meantime, videos of the crash scene circulated online. They recognized the teenager’s silver car, which was crushed between a pickup truck and another vehicle.
“I still don’t believe it,” Freeman said. “I probably won’t until I see my baby. That’s the part that hurts me the most. She had a lot going.”
The family said the 19-year-old was driving with two friends in the car. One of her friends was also killed, and the other was hospitalized. The three young women were coworkers, the family said.
A third person in another vehicle was killed, but as of Monday, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office had only identified Freeman as one of the deceased.
“It’s a part of helping us heal and deal with this by knowing what actually happened,” Sims said.
The family says they learned the pickup truck behind the teenager’s vehicle was speeding and caused the pileup, but FWPD has not confirmed that information.
“She was so young and she had so much goals in her to do, and it’s gone… and she’s gone,” Sims said. “She had goals. She had dreams, and I wanted to see her achieve that. Now she can’t.”
Sims told WFAA her granddaughter dreamed of moving into her own home and becoming a sonogram technician. On this day last year, she was attending her senior prom.
“She was a well-mannered child. She was sweet as she could be, soft-spoken. She loved her brothers and sisters, loved her mom, her dad,” Sims said. “She was a good person.”
In a statement, Union Pacific told WFAA “the incident did not involve the railroad; however, due to its close proximity to the tracks, rail traffic is impacted.” Union Pacific said it would resume once Fort Worth police cleared the area.