Country Singer Was Going 102mph Before Deadly Crash

Crash killed Kylie Rae Harris, teen in oncoming vehicle
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 6, 2019 6:50 AM CST
Country Singer Was Drunk, Going 102mph Before Crash
Kylie Rae Harris.   (Wikipedia/casajimbopics)

The cause of the crash that killed country singer Kylie Rae Harris and a 16-year-old girl in New Mexico in September was Kylie Rae Harris, police have confirmed. The Taos County Sheriff's Office says the 30-year-old Texan was drunk and speeding when she hit another vehicle from behind on State Road 522 on Sept. 4, People reports. The collision sent Harris' Chevrolet Equinox into oncoming traffic, where she collided head-on with the Jeep driven by 16-year-old Maria Elena Cruz. The sheriff's office says an on-board computer from Harris' vehicle shows she was going at 102mph when she hit the first vehicle, whose driver was not seriously injured, and was still traveling at 95mph when she hit Cruz's Jeep.

Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe says Harris, who was on her way to play at a music festival in Taos, had a blood-alcohol content of .28, more than three times the legal limit, Taos News reports. The sheriff says there was no alcohol in Cruz's system. The teen was on her way home from working at her family's restaurant. Her father, deputy chief of a volunteer fire department, arrived at the scene as first responders were helping victims, NBC reports. "The now-completed investigation supports what we suspected at the time of our initial investigation and my earlier press release that stated alcohol consumption was suspected and speeding was a factor," the sheriff said. Harris, mother of a 6-year-old daughter, had a 2017 DWI conviction in Texas. (More country music stories.)

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