Five people are dead, including the wife and two young children of a Hall County, Georgia, deputy, following a fiery multivehicle wreck along a busy highway in Habersham County on Sunday afternoon.
Officials said Wednesday they hope to have information this week on how the community can support Deputy Patrick Neil Holtzclaw, who is now faced with unspeakable tragedy. He is forced to bury the love of his life along with his son and daughter, both under seven years old.
“What can you say when someone loses his entire family?” Sheriff Gerald Couch wrote in a statement. “There are no words that can adequately express the heartbreak the Holtzclaw family is experiencing right now, but clearly our entire agency is devastated for them.”
The crash happened at about 3:30 p.m. just outside the town of Alto. Troopers said Avonlea Holtzclaw, 29, of Dahlonega, was traveling with her kids in a Ford Explorer and tried to cross the southbound lanes of Ga. 365 onto Mount Zion Road. That’s when 58-year-old Mitchell Boggs of Marietta, who was driving south on the highway in a Corvette with another passenger, struck her vehicle.