JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) – Jonesboro police said Wednesday that “street racing” may have led to a fatal crash that claimed two lives.
Arkansas State Police reported the crash happened at 1:27 p.m. Tuesday, June 24, at mile marker 47 on Interstate 555 in Jonesboro.
ASP said 47-year-old Rodney D. Laster, Sr., of Trumann was northbound when his 2013 Dodge Challenger left the roadway and struck a tree.
Laster and his passenger, 46-year-old Charlotte Laster, were both killed.
According to an initial incident report released June 25, Jonesboro Patrolman Jeremy White was southbound on I-555 when he noticed a 2013 Dodge Challenger and a Ford Mustang “traveling at a high rate of speed passing vehicles on the inside shoulder of the road traveling north.”
White estimated both vehicles were traveling over 100 mph.
“Upon seeing these two appeared to be street racing, I notified dispatch advising them to notify state police,” White stated in the report. “Within seconds of me notifying them, Patrolman Noell advised dispatch by radio that he had witnessed one of the vehicles I had just seen wreck off the highway past the Washington [Avenue] exit.”
White turned around and responded to the scene.
When he reached the crash site, which was in a wooded area off the roadway, White reported finding Laster’s Challenger “split in half.”
Rodney Laster had been thrown from the vehicle, the report stated. Charlotte Laster had been partially ejected.
White said both Rodney and Charlotte Laster were “obviously deceased with no sign of life.”
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