One killed in weekend head-on collision

Just before 8 a.m. on Sunday, April 18, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers responded to a head-on collision on Highway 96 in Jasper County, near Pentecostal Street in Brookeland. One fatality resulted from the crash that involved a head-on collision between a commercial motor vehicle and passenger car.

The preliminary DPS crash investigation indicates that a Honda SUV was traveling northbound on Highway 96 and, for reasons unknown, crossed the center dividing line and collided head-on with a commercial motor vehicle tractor-trailer headed south on the same roadway.

DPS confirmed that 33-year-old Colby Danielle Gates of Hemphill, the driver of the Honda SUV, was pronounced deceased by Justice of the Peace Brett Holloway. The passenger in the Honda, a 32-year-old Silsbee woman, was transported by medical helicopter to a Conroe hospital with serious injuries. The driver of the commercial motor vehicle, of Hemphill, was not injured in the crash.