U.S. 63 Shutdown: One Dead in Fatal County Crash

By Dhivya Easwarasamy On Dec 5, 2023

U.S. 63 Shutdown One Dead in Fatal County Crash

An accident on U.S. 63 near Gardner Ford south of Houston on Monday afternoon killed one person and hurt four others. The road was stopped for hours and people had to take alternate routes.

Around 4:50 p.m., Tpr. Jason Sentman said that a 2016 Ford F-150 being driven southbound by James F. Russo, 51, of St. Louis, went across the middle of the road and hit a 2021 Volkswagen Atlas being driven northbound by Latisha M. Harris, 43, of Fort Mitchell, Ala.

The Russo car kept going south until it hit a 2013 Kenworth being driven north by Richard A. Fish, 51, of Connersville, Indiana.

The hit caused the Kenworth to go off the right side of the highway, flip over, and land on its top, he said. Russo was thrown out of the car because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.

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Texas County Coroner Marie Lasater said that Russo was dead at the scene of the crime. His next of kin were told about it.

The Texas County morgue got the body. It was the 35th death in Troop G’s nine-county area this year. At this point in 2022, there had been 28 deaths.

Harris and Hasson M. Harris, 42, of Fort Mitchell, Alabama, were both in the Volkswagen and were taken by paramedics to Texas County Memorial Hospital in Houston with minor injuries.

Fish was taken to Springfield’s Cox South with minor injuries. A boy in the Kenworth who was 12 years old was taken to Texas County Memorial Hospital with minor injuries.

The Cabool Fire Department, the Houston Rural Fire Department, the Texas County Sheriff’s Department, and MoDOT were among the groups that were on the scene.

Some other people who were at the Gardener Ford bridge were two officers and a patrol crash team. All three cars were towed.

Today, the cleanup is expected to go on, and the highway returned after being closed for more than three hours, forcing drivers to take alternate routes.