Fort Bragg Soldier, 26, Killed in Six-Car Pileup on Fayetteville's Morganton Road

A six-vehicle crash at the intersection of Morganton Road and East Loch Haven Road in Fayetteville left one man dead and seven others injured on Tuesday afternoon. Francisco Irizarry-Gonzalez, a 26-year-old Fort Bragg resident, was transported to a nearby hospital where he later died, while the other victims were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The Fayetteville Police Department confirmed officers responded to the collision at 4:14 p.m. on August 25, according to a Fayetteville Police Department post. As reported by WRAL, the crash occurred at Morganton Road and E. Loch Haven Road, and Irizarry-Gonzalez was pronounced dead after being taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center. Investigators have not yet released what caused the multi-vehicle collision.

Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact Detective K. Stafford at (472) 272-5919, per the same police account. Tips can also be submitted anonymously to Fayetteville/Cumberland County Crime Stoppers by phone at (910) 483-TIPS (8477) or online through its tip sheet.

A Corridor With a Troubled History

This is not the first fatal wreck at this stretch of roadway. The intersection of Morganton Road and East Loch Haven Drive was the site of a fatal single-vehicle crash investigated by the Fayetteville Police Department in January 2025, according to the department's own records. The recurrence points to a persistent hazard along a corridor that state data has already flagged as unusually dangerous.

An NCDOT corridor study completed in March 2023 found that Morganton Road carries between 18,000 and 35,000 vehicles daily and registered a crash rate of 544 collisions per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, well above the statewide average of 430 for similar five-lane roads, as reported by CityView NC. To address the elevated collision rate, the North Carolina Department of Transportation proposed replacing the corridor's open center turn lane with a raised median that would create a reduced-conflict intersection design, cutting potential collision points by more than half.

Morganton Road is a state-maintained corridor governed directly by NCDOT rather than a municipal street under the City of Fayetteville, according to the City of Fayetteville, meaning any redesign of the roadway falls to the state rather than local officials.

Cumberland County's Broader Traffic Toll

Tuesday's crash adds to a grim countywide tally. Cumberland County recorded 58 traffic fatalities in 2024, the fourth-highest county death toll in North Carolina, trailing only Mecklenburg, Wake, and Guilford counties, according to ThatCarHitMe.com. Within Fayetteville's municipal limits, NCDMV data cited by the same source shows the city logged 4,471 reportable motor vehicle collisions in 2024, resulting in 30 traffic fatalities and 1,967 non-fatal injuries.

Those local numbers mirror a statewide trend. North Carolina traffic deaths rose 2.7% in 2024 to 1,732 fatalities across 284,546 reportable crashes, with excessive speeding identified as a factor in 21.4% of fatal wrecks, per the same data hub. Police have not said whether speed played a role in Tuesday's chain-reaction collision, and the cause remains under investigation.

A Fort Bragg Community Loss

Irizarry-Gonzalez was pronounced dead after being transported to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, a state-designated Level III Trauma Center that houses North Carolina's busiest emergency department, treating roughly 130,000 patients annually according to Cape Fear Valley Health. That facility received all eight victims from the crash.

Irizarry-Gonzalez lived at Fort Bragg, the installation that was officially restored to its original name in March 2025 after being called Fort Liberty between June 2023 and early 2025, per the U.S. Department of Defense. The renaming explains why official police reports on Irizarry-Gonzalez's residence use the Fort Bragg designation rather than the interim name.

Fayetteville's Morganton Road has drawn Hoodline's attention before. Earlier this year, Hoodline reported on a sitter charged after fatal crash on the same corridor that killed an unrestrained infant, and the site has also covered other fatal wrecks across the city, including a fatal motorcycle crash on Legion Drive earlier this month. Police have not released additional details on what triggered Tuesday's six-vehicle collision, and the investigation remains open.