PUBLIC SAFETY

Suspected drunken driver arrested in crash that kills 3 international students

Police said the victims were foreign national students from Ethiopia and Nigeria.

Justin L. Mack
justin.mack@Indystar.com

Three international students who attended Manchester University were killed and a fourth was critically injured early Sunday when a suspected drunken driver hit them as they tended to a flat tire on I-69.

The two-vehicle crash was reported at 5:23 a.m. Sunday in the northbound lanes of I-69 in Grant County, just north of the Delaware County line, according to a report from the Grant County Sheriff's Department.

Police said a van carrying seven Manchester students was broken down because of a flat front driver's side tire. As the van sat partially off the interstate toward the median, three students were standing at the rear of the vehicle, and four were along the driver's side area.

As the students worked to repair the tire, a northbound van driven by 26-year-old Deangelo R. Evans of Chicago left the road and struck four of the students and the van, police said.

Three of the students were killed at the scene, police said. A fourth student was flown to Parkview Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne in critical condition.

In a Facebook update posted around 2:30 p.m., Manchester University officials identified the students who were killed as Nerad Grace Mangai, Brook M. Dagnew and Kirubel Alemayehu Hailu. The hospitalized student was identified as Israel Solomon Tamire.

The other three students who were not struck by the vehicle returned to North Manchester unharmed.

School officials said all of the students are from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, except for Mangai, a sophomore biology-chemistry major from Jos, Nigeria. Brook was a sophomore majoring in biology-chemistry and Kirubel was a first-year medical technology major.

The students had gone on a visit to Ball State and Taylor universities over the weekend, and they were heading back to school in North Manchester when they got the flat tire.

"Please hold all of the people who love these students in your thoughts and prayers," Manchester President Dave McFadden said in a statement. "We can’t begin to understand the tragic loss of Nerad, Brook and Kirubel, young lives so full of promise. The MU community grieves their passing and will miss them deeply."

Police said Evans was treated for minor injuries before being arrested on suspicion of three counts of operating while intoxicated causing death and three counts of reckless homicide.

He is being held in the Grant County Jail on a $300,000 bond.

Call IndyStar reporter Justin L. Mack at (317) 444-6138. Follow him on Twitter:@justinlmack.