Best friends Staci Sexton and Jacob Ray lost their lives after a boat crash on Lake Tyler early last Saturday morning. (CBS19/Contributed Photo)

TYLER, Texas — Best friends Staci Sexton and Jacob Ray lost their lives after a boat crash on Lake Tyler early last Saturday morning. Now as officials search for answers, the families of the victims are searching for ways to cope with the sudden loss.

“I was at work; I lost it. I couldn’t believe it,” Sexton’s mother Cindy Jackson said.

Staci Sexton and Ray, both 38, were two of the three people in a flat-bottom boat struck by a fishing boat around 6 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 18, in the Whitehouse area of Lake Tyler. The other woman in the flat-bottom boat was hospitalized for her injuries.

Read more from our news partners at CBS19.