A Girl Scout trip to a southern Indiana amusement park ended in tragedy Saturday evening when a driver fleeing a Pike County sheriff's deputy slammed head-on into a van carrying a mother and four children, killing two drivers and an 8-year-old girl on State Road 64. The crash also left three other children hospitalized after a pursuit that began at a gas station in Arthur; the crash occurred roughly eight miles east of the gas station.
According to WRTV, the chase started at 7:42 p.m. Saturday when a Pike County deputy responded to a domestic violence call at the Country Junction gas station in Arthur. A red Toyota Camry suspected of being involved in that incident sped away as the deputy pursued with lights and sirens on, per the news release cited by the station. The Camry driver allegedly forced another motorist off the road while heading east, then drove through a flashing red light at the four-way stop where State Roads 61 and 64 meet, and even tried to ram the deputy's patrol car before the deputy managed to avoid the attempted collision.
The pursuit ended near Pike County Road 900 E on State Road 64, where the Camry crossed the centerline and struck a Toyota Sienna head-on. Family members told Wisdom 92.1 - WZDM that the Sienna's driver, 41-year-old Amanda Wertman of Winslow, and the four children riding with her were on their way home from a Girl Scout trip to Holiday World & Splashin' Safari.
A Mother and Daughter Lost, Three Children Fighting to Recover
Wertman died at the scene, the same report notes, and the Camry driver also died in the crash. Wertman's 8-year-old daughter later died at a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Social media posts identified her as Michaela Wertman. Blazer 91.1 also reported that Amanda Wertman's 5-year-old son, Theodore, was among the three surviving children hospitalized with severe injuries.
The four children were taken to local hospitals following the crash, and the three surviving siblings were expected to recover, though they remained hospitalized in critical but stable condition as of the latest reports cited by the station. The Pike County Coroner's Office had not released the Camry driver's name as of Monday afternoon.
Winslow School and Community Rally Around the Family
Winslow Elementary School, where Michaela Wertman was a student, announced it would offer dedicated grief counseling, administrative support, and safe spaces for affected students, families, and staff, per the same Blazer 91.1 report. The school is part of the Pike County School Corporation, a small rural district now grappling with the loss of one of its own.
A GoFundMe campaign has also been established to help the Wertman family cover funeral costs and ongoing medical expenses for the surviving children, the outlet reported. Pike County is home to just 12,250 residents and sits roughly a 50-minute drive northeast of downtown Evansville, the kind of tight-knit rural community where a crash like this reverberates widely.
Investigation Continues as Reconstruction Team Reviews Chase
Indiana State Police reported the crash deaths in a news release issued Monday afternoon, but the agency's Crash Reconstruction Team had not completed its investigation as of that afternoon. That unit uses 3D forensic mapping, onboard vehicle data extraction, and trajectory modeling to independently evaluate pursuits resulting in serious injury or death before submitting findings to local prosecutors, according to background information from the Indiana State Police. Key questions remain unresolved, including the exact duration and speed of the pursuit and whether supervisors were monitoring the chase in real time.
Had the Camry driver survived, Indiana law would have treated fleeing a law enforcement officer in a vehicle that caused deaths as an offense more serious than a Level 6 felony. Notably, the 2017 Indiana Court of Appeals ruling in Paquette v. State of Indiana, a case stemming from a wrong-way pursuit on I-69 in nearby Pike County that killed three people, established that a driver causing multiple fatalities during a single continuous high-speed pursuit can only be convicted of a single count of vehicle-resisting law enforcement causing death, per The Indiana Lawyer.
A Pattern Seen Across Rural Highways Nationwide
Indiana pursuit rules govern when officers may initiate and continue pursuits. That discretion sits at the center of a broader national debate: federal data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows police pursuits nationwide cause more than 300 to 500 fatalities each year, with innocent bystanders accounting for roughly 25 to 27 percent of all victims, as reported by Newsweek.
A national study reported that 89 percent of fatal pursuit crashes occur on non-interstate roadways such as state highways. The research also found that deaths increased by roughly 2 percent annually after adjustment and that 70 percent of fatal crashes occurred at night. The setting mirrors what happened on the two-lane stretch of State Road 64 outside Arthur, where a call meant to stop a domestic violence suspect instead ended a mother's and daughter's lives.
