Off-duty Kansas officer killed in head-on crash with wrong-way driver, police say

An off-duty Kansas officer was killed in a double-fatality crash with a wrong-way driver near Topeka, police said.

The crash was reported in the 6700 block of northwest U.S. 75 at around 2 p.m. on Tuesday. The Topeka Police Department said in a Tuesday Facebook post that one of its officers died from injuries sustained in the wreck.

He was later identified as Trey McCluskey, 25, of Topeka. He had been with the department for just under three years and worked the night shift on the Field Operations Bureau.

McCluskey was driving a 2015 Hyundai Tuscon southbound on U.S. 75 when it crashed head on with a 2017 Acura RDX that was northbound in the southbound lanes, a Kansas Highway Patrol crash report states. Both vehicles are SUVs.

McCluskey and the driver of the Acura — Peter Bieri, 72, of Lawrence — were pronounced dead at the scene, the crash report states.

A passenger in McCluskey's SUV — Taylor McCluskey, 25, of Sabetha — was taken to Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka, the crash report shows. A spokeswoman said that McCluskey was not in the hospital's system Wednesday afternoon.

Trey and Taylor McCluskey were married in Manhattan in January 2017, their registry on The Knot shows. Taylor McCluskey graduated from the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine earlier this month.

Trey McCluskey was an assistant football coach at Shawnee Heights Middle School, school board minutes show.

The southbound lanes of the highway in northern Shawnee County were closed while state troopers investigated the crash, the Highway Patrol said in a tweet.

This story was originally published May 29, 2018 at 9:49 PM with the headline "Off-duty Kansas officer killed in head-on crash with wrong-way driver, police say."