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A tractor-trailer crashes into a home and kills 2, the driver is charged

By Ap 1 min read

IRWIN, Tenn. (AP) — Two people have died and another was injured after a tractor-trailer crashed into a home in eastern Tennessee and the truck driver was arrested, police said.

Robenson Vertus, 41, of Connecticut, was driving the semitruck west along Interstate 26 on Sunday morning when it left the roadway, went through a fence and across another road before hitting a parked car and then a two-story house, the Tennessee Highway Patrol said in a statement.

Unicoi County Emergency Management Agency Director Jimmy Erwin told the Johnson City Press that the truck caught fire after crashing into the home, which then set it ablaze.

One person in the home was killed in the wreck and a second person was pronounced dead later at the hospital, police said. A third person remained hospitalized.

Vertus had minor injuries from the crash and was treated before being taken to the Unicoi County Jail on charges of criminally negligent homicide, authorities said. Online jail records don’t list an attorney for Vertus.

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