(5/9 – updated)

It was a deadly Mother’s Day weekend on Iowa’s roads, with six lives lost in four separate crashes. The Iowa State Patrol says at around 6:30-a.m., Saturday, a single-vehicle accident in Greene County took the lives of 36-year old John Jacob Twombly, of Des Moines, and 26-year old Alexander Joseph Sharer, of Boone. The accident happened on Highway 30, west of 222nd Street, when a 1989 Corvette driven by Twombly, failed to negotiate a curve and veered off the road, through a cable guardrail, and traveled down an embankment before hitting a tree. Authorities say alcohol was likely a cause of the crash, but the accident remained under investigation.

Less than two-hours later, and as we’ve mentioned in earlier reports, 27-year old Tara Norton of West Des Moines and 70-year old James Snyder, of Adair, died in a near head-on crash. The accident happened at around 8:10-a.m. Saturday, east of Anita. 63-year old Constance Snyder, of Adair, was injured in the crash, and flown to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines.

A few minutes later, in southeastern Iowa’s Monroe County, one-person died and three others were injured in a collision between a van and a car. The Iowa State Patrol says a 2001 Pontiac Bonneville driven by 47-year old Mark A. Garretson, of Bloomfield, was traveling north on Highway 5 at around 8:17-a.m., when a southbound 2012 Toyota van driven by 69-year old Maryln L. Copeland, of Ottumwa, for reasons unknown, crossed into the northbound lane and struck the car in an offset, head-on manner.

Garretson died at the scene. Copeland, and two passengers in the van, 5-year old’s Anneliese and Jopephine Knotek, both of Ottumwa, were injured. Maryln Copeland was flown by Mercy helicopter to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines. The children were transported by ambulance to Mercy Hospital in Centerville. The accident remains under investigation.

And, a former Mount Mercy University basketball player has died at a hospital following a Johnson County car crash. The accident occurred a little after 3 a.m. Sunday on Interstate 380 near the Iowa Highway 965 overpass. The Iowa State Patrol says a northbound car driven by 26-year-old Rashad Carrington went out of control and struck a guardrail, then landed in a roadside ditch. He was pronounced dead later at an Iowa City hospital. Carrington graduated from Mount Mercy in 2013 and most recently was playing for the Cedar Valley CourtKings, a minor league basketball team based in Waterloo.