A Friday night crash on I-75 killed three generations of a single Middletown family: Six-year-old Wildwood Elementary student Brayden Jennings, his mother, Amanda Kidwell, and his grandmother, Betty Davis. They had been traveling together in the southbound lane when a semitrailer headed in the opposite direction crossed the center line and struck their car head-on.
Karon Brooks, a longtime family friend, was still struggling on Monday to process the sudden, devastating loss.
“(Betty) had a little bitty car, and the whole front end of that semi smashed in,” she said. “I can’t imagine it.”
In a police report, the hospitalized driver of the semi said he began to cough and lost consciousness immediately before the crash. Investigators were still attempting to learn and verify details on Monday.
“Whether he was speeding, whether he fell asleep, whether he was ill — we just don’t know any of those answers yet,” Moraine police Sgt. Andy Parish said.
Brooks described the family as special and their deaths as a "great loss" for those who knew them. She knew Davis the best, she said.
“Just the sweetest person,” she said. “She would do anything for anybody. She raised her daughters on her own.”
As an adult, daughter Kidwell remained inseparable from Davis.
“They were like more than best friends,” according to Brooks. “You seen one, you’d see the other one.”
She added she has been trying to take comfort in the thought they’re still together and that Brayden is with them.
A fourth family member, a girl under 10 years old, survived the wreck but remained hospitalized over the weekend.
Brayden Jennings’ father, who declined to give an interview but spoke briefly with reporters over the phone, said she was doing well.
