Authorities have identified a Tennessee trucker and four members of an Illinois family who died in an East Texas traffic accident.
The Department of Public Safety on Saturday said investigators are trying to determine why a big rig rear-ended a minivan stopped on Interstate 30 as an earlier unrelated wreck cleared.
Sgt. Sylvia Jennings says 64-year-old Wanda Gebhart of Pikeville, Tennessee, died at the scene Friday on eastbound I-30 at Mount Pleasant, 100 miles (160 kilometers) northeast of Dallas.
Jennings says 41-year-old Jessica Brokish of Savoy, Illinois, and her three children were also killed. DPS didn't immediately release names of the boys — ages 9 and 6 — plus a 2-year-old girl. The woman's husband was driving and was hospitalized with unspecified injuries.
Three other stopped vehicles were caught in the chain-reaction crash.
