4 dead after weekend wreck

Published 5:07 pm Monday, December 4, 2017

Four people are dead, including a Tazewell man, after a wreck in Hancock County over the weekend. The wreck occurred around midnight Sunday morning.

According to a report from the Tennessee Highway Patrol, a 2014 Ford FSE was being driven by Dustin C. Johnson, 31, of Tazewell, west on state Highway 33 in Sneedville when at the intersection of Walnut Street it “ran off the right side of the roadway striking a standing tree.” The vehicle “continued to travel striking a parked pickup truck,” then “came to an uncontrolled final rest on the right side of the roadway.”

There was no one in the parked truck, according to THP.

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Johnson was killed in the wreck.

His front passenger, Jesse E. Weems, 19, of Bulls Gap, and a backseat passenger, Starla R. Dalton, 22, of Sneedville, were also killed.

Another backseat passenger, Deidra L. Seal, 23, of Sneedville, was taken to the hospital with injuries and died Sunday afternoon.

The driver was the only person in the vehicle wearing a seat belt, according to THP.

The wreck is under investigation by Trooper Anthony Bull.