TROWBRIDGE TOWNSHIP (WKZO-AM) — Distracted driving may have been the cause of a violent collision that killed an 18-year-old girl from Plainwell, who crashed into a home at 102nd Avenue and M-40 in Allegan County.
Allegan County Undersheriff Frank Baker says it appears Murphy Peters shot through a stop sign at the intersection, was struck broadside by a delivery truck at about 9 a.m. The impact sent the car careening through the front porch of a home.
The occupant of the home was in the kitchen and was rocked by what he thought was an explosion.
He had to go outside to get to the front of the home and found the teen already unresponsive.
The truck driver, a 42-year-old from the Grand Rapids area, claims he saw the girl talking on a cell phone just before the collision. A cell phone was found in the car and investigators are trying to verify that Peters may have been distracted.
She was declared dead at the scene.
The preliminary investigation supports the truck driver’s account that the teen never attempted to brake at the stop sign despite a flashing light at the intersection.
