2 dead after one-vehicle crash in Rusk County

Published 4:19 pm Friday, December 6, 2019

Crash_stock_windshield_wreck

Two men are dead after a one-vehicle wreck Thursday afternoon in Rusk County.

The Texas Department of Public Safety responded to the crash at about 3:25 p.m. on Farm-to-Market Road 2012, 2 miles south of the city of Laird Hill in Rusk County, according to a news release.



Robert Deveral Barber, 40, of Gladewater, was traveling north on FM 2012 in a 1991 GMC pickup when his front right tire blew out, which made him lose control, according to the DPS.

The vehicle went into a ditch and hit a pipe fence and a tree. Barber and the passenger, Chad Eugene Blackman, 32, of Grand Prairie, were both pronounced dead at the scene and taken to a funeral home in Kilgore, according to a preliminary investigation.

Neither was wearing a seat belt. The crash remains under investigation, according to the DPS news release.