The driver of a flatbed truck involved in a crash which killed Harrison Deal, a young staffer to then-Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, has been indicted for homicide by vehicle.
A Chatham County Grand Jury indicted Mario Demaine Clark, 44, of Atlanta, who was driving a freightliner flatbed on I-16 eastbound in Pooler, outside of Savannah, on Dec. 4, 2020 when he allegedly struck vehicles which caused the crash in which Deal was killed.
Pooler police said four vehicles were involved in the 10 a.m. crash and that three of the vehicles were engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived.
The crash occurred one day after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp called for a signature audit of the state’s 2020 election results after the Trump campaign legal team presented a long list of irregularities in the state’s election.
Related: Death of close family friend of Georgia governor preceded critical weekend for state, nation, December 8, 2020
Deal, 20, was close with Kemp’s 19-year-old daughter Lucy. “It’s impossible to put into words just who Harrison Deal was,” Lucy Kemp said in a statement issued through the governor’s office. “He was so special to me and I can’t imagine my life without him.”
Witnesses who posted on the Pooler Police Department's Facebook page reported hearing an explosion at the crash site. Some said the explosion could be heard a mile away.
"We live in the area and heard a loud explosion," one poster wrote.
"My son works at Savannah Quarters and said he and his coworkers heard a loud explosion," another wrote.
"I have a college friend in the apartment complex facing that road. The complex is fairly new and does not show up on google maps. Its directly across the street from where the accident took place (Mosby Lakeside). They originally thought it was one of those tanker semi trucks that exploded because it was so massive. Rattled the building."
Others on the Pooler PD Facebook page noted that Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling had in the days prior to Deal's death called on Trump's team to halt its contesting of the election.
“I’m going to do my best to keep it together. Because it has all gone too far. All of it,” Sterling said during a Dec. 1 press conference in Atlanta. “Someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get shot, someone’s going to get killed. It’s not right.”
In a since deleted thread on Reddit, some speculated that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) agent who was investigating the crash had committed suicide.
The GBI, however, said none of its agents were investigating the fatal crash.
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