A Bakersfield mother and her two daughters burned to death after a wrong-way driver slammed into their car on southbound Highway 99, just north of 7th Standard Road, in the early hours of the morning nearly a week ago. The three, identified by the Kern County Coroner's Office as 41-year-old Vanessa Sue Wetmore and her daughters Kylie Wetmore, 20, and Kloie Wetmore, 16, were driving home to Bakersfield from a concert in Fresno when their 2022 Honda Accord became engulfed in flames.
California Highway Patrol officers responded to the scene around 12:44 a.m. on August 16, according to KFOX, finding a fiery three-vehicle collision that also involved a white 2019 BMW 530i driven by a 44-year-old man and a white 2022 Chevrolet Colorado driven by a 41-year-old woman. Kylie Wetmore was behind the wheel of the Honda, with her mother and sister riding as passengers, and all three died at the scene, per CHP. The BMW driver, the vehicle's sole occupant, suffered severe injuries, while the two occupants of the Chevrolet sustained only minor injuries.
CHP has confirmed that one vehicle was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes but has not publicly determined which of the three cars was going the wrong way, and investigators have said whether alcohol or drugs played a role remains unknown. Officers are continuing to investigate the crash, and CHP Bakersfield is asking anyone with information to call (661) 396-6600.
A Birthday Trip That Turned Tragic
The family had traveled to Fresno's Save Mart Center, a 15,500-seat arena on the California State University, Fresno campus roughly 110 miles north of Bakersfield, for a concert featuring soul acts Thee Sacred Souls, LA LOM and The Womack Sisters on the night of August 15, according to NTD, which cited reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle. A GoFundMe campaign set up for the family said the outing was meant to celebrate Kloie Wetmore's 17th birthday, a date she shared with her surviving brother, who turned 16 the same day, as reported by KGET-TV. Highway 99 serves as the primary direct route linking Fresno and Bakersfield, and the family was heading home along that corridor when the crash occurred.
The GoFundMe page described a family still trying to comprehend the sudden loss of a mother and two daughters in one night. Tributes shared on social media and relayed by Crime Talk noted that Kylie Wetmore was a Centennial High School alumna in Bakersfield who played on the school's varsity softball team, with former teammates posting public tributes honoring her memory following the crash.
Highway 99's Long History as a Danger Zone
The stretch of roadway where the Wetmore family died sits on a corridor with a grim safety record. A study of 2018 through 2022 crash data examined by CBS News identified State Route 99 as California's deadliest highway route, recording nearly 90 fatalities annually across close to 400 total crashes along its 425-mile run through Kern, Tulare and Fresno counties. Historical analysis published by Arnold Law Firm notes that the highway, originally designated U.S. Route 99 in 1926, lacks adequate lighting across major stretches of the Central Valley, with darkness cited as a factor in more than 40% of fatal crashes on the route.
Wrong-way crashes specifically remain a persistent, if statistically rare, threat statewide. Data published on Caltrans's Go Safely CA traffic safety portal shows an average of 43 people die each year in wrong-way collisions on California highways, with 61.4% of such crashes in 2019 involving impaired drivers, even though wrong-way collisions account for less than 1% of all traffic fatalities in the state. Research conducted by UC Davis for Caltrans found that installing bidirectional red-reflective pavement markers and flashing LED warning signs on freeway off-ramps cut reported wrong-way driving incidents by 44% to 64%, prompting Caltrans to update its statewide design standards.
Under California Vehicle Code Section 21651, driving on the wrong side of a divided highway is itself a crime, and a willful violation that results in injury or death can be prosecuted as a felony carrying up to three years in state prison, according to FindLaw. CHP has not yet publicly assigned fault among the three vehicles involved, leaving open whether any criminal charges will ultimately be filed.
A Familiar, Painful Pattern
The Wetmore family's deaths echo other wrong-way tragedies on Highway 99 in recent years. Elk Grove honored fallen Officer Ty Lenehan earlier this year with a memorial plaque after he was killed by a wrong-way driver on the same highway back in January 2022, underscoring how the corridor's dangers have touched communities up and down the Central Valley long before this latest crash.
