The investigating officer, Beavercreek Officer Matt Hickey, said some questions were never answered about what happened Nov. 27, 2017, when the yellow Cavalier Trammer was a passenger in was struck from behind on I-675 North by a white pickup truck driven by 35-year-old John Tokarz.
There were three passengers in the Cavalier. The one who survived the crash without serious injuries, Caleb Upton, was asleep at the time of the crash and does not recall what happened, Hickey said.
The Cavalier’s driver, Kennise Hicks, was determined to be the at-fault driver. Hicks did not emerge from critical condition following the crash and he was eventually transferred to a hospital out-of-state at the request of his family, Hickey said.
The other passenger who was critically injured, Andrew Clark, was eventually released from the hospital but he was not able to provide helpful information, Hickey said.
Hickey said based on eyewitness accounts, the Cavalier was traveling in the right lane at approximately 20 mph. He said the vehicle had a tire blow out at some point because there was a spare on one of the wheels, but it’s not clear when that happened.
“Out of all the crashes I’ve investigated, this was by far the most complicated,” Hickey said. “I’ve never had a crash with so many attorneys involved. it was an absolute nightmare.”
EARLIER
Nearly a year has passed since a crash in Beavercreek killed a Central State University student and critically injured two others.
The two-vehicle crash on Nov. 27, 2017, shut down traffic on I-675 north for hours that afternoon. It took Beavercreek police several months before investigators were able to report who was at fault.
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Central State University student Trayvon Trammer, 20, was one of three passengers in the yellow 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier driven by 21-year-old Kennise Hicks, police said. Trammer suffered fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Hicks, along with passenger Andrew Clark, 21, were critically injured. A third passenger, 20-year-old Caleb Upton, was also taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries.
The Cavalier was “traveling at a slow speed” in the right lane when it was struck from behind by a white 2009 Suzuki Equator pickup truck driven by 35-year-old John Tokarz, of Beavercreek, according to the crash report.
Police said in the days following the crash that one of the Cavalier’s wheels was a spare tire.
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Tokarz had changed from the middle to the right lane and did not slow down in time to avoid colliding with the Cavalier, according to the report.
Beavercreek investigators met with the Greene County Prosecutor’s Office this year, and it was determined that Hicks, the Cavalier’s driver, was at fault, according to the crash report.
A civil suit was filed on behalf of Trammer against Tokarz, but because the notification was not successfully delivered to Tokarz, Greene County Judge Michael Buckwalter dismissed the case, according to records in Greene County Common Pleas Court. The plaintiff in the lawsuit was seeking $25,000, according to court records.
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Citing the lawsuit, Upton and Tokarz declined to comment for this story. Messages left with the others who were involved in the crash were not returned.
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