Pizza truck crashes by roadside memorial cross, site of 2 fatal crashes, sheriff says

A sheriff in southeast Kansas is asking drivers to use caution at a highway intersection where two people have died this month.

The Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post that an area north of Sedan along K-99 highway by the intersection with Quivira Road is the site of two fatal crashes within nine days. The department made the post after another crash there Tuesday morning.

A sheriff’s office photo of the crash shows a DiGiorno and Tombstone pizza truck rolled over on its top just feet from a roadside memorial cross for an Andover teenager who died after a wreck there earlier this month.

The cross is for Kristen Lynn Turner, 18, who was killed April 19. A Sunday afternoon crash at the same spot killed Terence Eugene Leiker, 57, of Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported that Leiker’s pickup truck left the roadway to the right, slid across the road to the left and rolled into a ditch.

“Please pray for the victims and families of those involved, our first responders, medical personnel as well as our community that is affected by the dangers of this highway,” the sheriff’s office Facebook post said.

No injuries were reported in Tuesday’s pizza truck crash, the department said.

This story was originally published April 30, 2019 at 10:04 PM.