Family members say 15-year-old Isaiah Stroble took a car for a ride with eight friends packed inside early Sunday morning.
“They were doing 90 miles an hour. It was tragic,” Sandra Arnold, Stroble’s aunt told 41 Action News.
A Lenexa, Kansas police officer tried to pull them over near 87th and Lackman around 4:35 a.m. after noticing the car’s headlights weren’t on.
“Everybody in the car was telling him to stop,” Arnold said.
But instead the Stroble took off and lost control a short time later at 80th and Maurer Road.
The impact killed Stroble, 14-year-old Angelito Espinoza and injured seven others in the backseat.
“It doesn't seem like he's gone, it's like he's just going to walk through the door and start talking to us again,” Diamond Wilson, Stroble’s cousin said.
The teens’ sudden deaths have left their friends and families in shock. On Monday, the Kansas City, Kansas School District sent grief counselors to Argentine Middle School where Stroble was an eighth grader and to Espinoza’s school, Bridges Academy.
“He [Stroble] was a really funny person even when he plays his video games like every time he would play his video games he would be talking smack, he's pretty funny,” Angel Contreras Tobar, a friend said.
In light of this tragedy, the family wants people to know joyriding is a serious matter.
“Watch for the signs I mean if they do it once they're going to do it again and unfortunately this time for my nephew it took his life,” Arnold said.
According to family, three teens remain in the hospital in critical condition. A candlelight vigil to remember the teens is set for Saturday at 5 p.m. at Pierson Park in KCK.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help with funeral costs.
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Andres Gutierrez can be reached at andres.gutierrez@kshb.com
