Jensen La Vende

Two peo­ple were killed when the car they were in crashed in­to a truck and then slammed in­to a lamp post near Cu­mu­to Junc­tion on Mon­day night.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, the ac­ci­dent took place around 11 pm. The dri­ver of the white Maz­da 3 re­port­ed­ly at­tempt­ed to make a U-turn at the Cu­mu­to traf­fic lights on the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way when the car col­lid­ed with a truck head­ing east.

Both oc­cu­pants of the car–Jamie Al­varez, 24, and Adri­an Mitchell, 28, died on the scene. Po­lice said the duo was head­ing to their Va­len­cia homes when the ac­ci­dent took place.Al­varez is the niece of so­ca artiste Ian "Bun­ji Gar­lin" Al­varez.

Al­varez ex­pressed his sad­ness over the loss of his niece on so­cial plat­form In­sta­gram, say­ing: "Rest in peace my niece. Rest in peace. May the lord strength­en Er­ic and Joel­la in this time and the rest of us. May the lord see over this and guide all our ac­tions ac­cord­ing­ly. The grief is heavy but know­ing you are in a bet­ter place eas­es the pain for a few. We love you, Jamie. Rest peace­ful­ly."

Ac­cord­ing to the dri­ver of the truck, iden­ti­fied on­ly as "Mo­han", he swerved to avoid hit­ting the car but could not ma­noeu­vre in time to avoid a col­li­sion.

A pas­sen­ger in the truck, Stan­ley Ma­habir, was tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty along with the dri­ver for treat­ment be­fore be­ing re­leased. Fire of­fi­cers had to use the Jaws of Life to re­move the duo from the man­gled wreck.

Speak­ing with the me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, Mitchell's moth­er, Lisa Mitchell-Mc In­tosh, said she was now in­con­solable as her son, a fa­ther of two, was the life of any par­ty.She said her son, a tat­too artist and PH taxi dri­ver, on­ly got his car last month as a way to earn ex­tra cash.

"He was a very fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed per­son, every­thing he did was for his fam­i­ly. I don't know why this hap­pened to him, noth­ing could con­sole me now.

He was the joy of my house. He was so fun­ny and he was al­ways play­ing the fool and al­ways had us laugh­ing. He al­ways had some­thing fun­ny to tell you," Mitchell-Mc In­tosh said.

She added that his ten-year-old daugh­ter, along with his wife, are both over­come with grief along with Mitchell's sib­lings, while his son, four, is not ful­ly aware of what hap­pened to his fa­ther.