6 Dead In Crash Involving Van Carrying Foster, Adopted Children

Six people are confirmed dead after a van carrying children from a group home for adopted and foster children collided with a semi truck in eastern Colorado on Thursday morning.

The collision happened Thursday south of Kit Carson, which is about 130 miles southeast of Denver.

Kiowa County Sheriff’s office spokesman Chris Sorensen said five of the victims were children and the sixth was a man who ran the home they lived in.

Stacy Stegman, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said the accident happened on a stretch of highway under repair.

Sorensen said workers have been repairing cracks on the highway for the past month, shutting down one lane and using a flag man to direct traffic.

He identified the dead as van driver Howard Mitchell; Austyn Ackinson, 11; Tony Mitchell, 4; Tayla Mitchell, 10; Andy Dawson, 13, and Jeremy Franks, 17.

The school district in Eads, about 15 miles south of Kit Carson, also said on its website that the crash involved the Mitchell family. Sorensen said the van was headed from Kit Carson to Eads, a town of about 600 with a school district of just under 200 students last year.

Dee Martinez, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services, told the Denver Post that the Mitchell family runs a group home for adopted and foster children that was licensed to care for 11 children. She could not say how many are currently in the family’s care.

The family are “good people with good hearts,” said Annette Weber, manager of the Trading Post restaurant next door to the Mitchell group home. The tragedy has been devastating to the community, she said.