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Hundreds Attend Vigil For Softball Players After Oklahoma Bus Crash

The four North Central Texas College softball players killed in Friday's crash. Clockwise from top right: Brooke Deckard, Jaiden Pelton, Katelynn Woodlee, Meagan Richardson
NCTC Athletics

Hundreds of people have attended a prayer vigil for victims of a college bus and truck wreck that left four students dead.

Mourners turned out Sunday night at North Central Texas College in Gainesville for a candlelight remembrance and to sing "Amazing Grace."

The accident Friday night on Interstate 35 near Davis, Oklahoma, left a dozen other people on the softball team bus hurt. The players were returning from a scrimmage against Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma.

Investigators want to determine why the tractor-trailer rig went through a median without any signs of braking or trying to avoid the collision.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol Capt. Ronnie Hampton said Sunday that the truck driver, 53-year-old Russell Staley of Saginaw, Texas, told investigators he was distracted before crossing the median on Interstate 35 near Davis, Oklahoma, Friday night. Hampton declined to say what the distraction was. Hampton said that investigators do not necessarily agree with Staley's explanation.

Hampton said investigators had obtained search warrants to collect evidence from both the truck and the bus carrying 15 members of North Central Texas College women's softball team and their coach. Besides the deaths, a dozen people were injured.

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