BANGOR, Maine — The surveillance camera video taken from Tom T’s convenience store on Broadway clearly shows a speeding and out-of-control vehicle hitting an SUV in front of the store during the fatal crash Sunday evening.
A thick cloud of white smoke follows the speeding vehicle as it heads out Broadway and strikes the SUV, which was inbound toward Bangor, head-on. After the collision, the speeding vehicle, a minivan, can be seen spinning around. It comes to a stop facing in the same direction it was heading.
As the smoke clears, the heavily damaged SUV comes into view on its side in the grass on the side of the road where Kev-Lan is located.
“It’s a video I wish I didn’t have,” store owner Tom Thibeau said. “It’s a very tragic situation.”
Police went to Tom T’s on Wednesday and returned Thursday to review the video, which supports what they say happened Sunday, the store owner said. The Bangor Daily News also reviewed the video Thursday.
Police say Ralph Morrison, 72, was driving a 2007 Hyundai minivan outbound on Broadway about 6 p.m. Sunday when he first struck a 2000 Toyota Camry, also heading outbound, and then went out of control and hit head-on the SUV, a 2002 GMC Envoy, which was heading into Bangor.
The collision, which occurred at the junction of Broadway and Burleigh Road, resulted in the death of Morrison’s passenger and wife, Diane Morrison, 68.
“It was their anniversary and they were on their way to church,” said Roann McCafferty of Belmont, Diane Morrison’s daughter. “They have been married 27 years.”
Ralph Morrison, who is her stepfather, was seriously injured in the crash and just started to talk again Thursday, but for the most part is confused, she said.
“We still don’t know what happened,” McCafferty said. “He’s in really bad condition. He’s really incoherent. He’s not aware of my mom’s passing.”
Morrison did not have a heart attack or stroke, doctors have told the family, and he has no major health issues, she said, adding that a CT scan was done Thursday.
“Something obviously happened,” McCafferty said. “I don’t know if it was a malfunction of the vehicle or something else.”
She described her stepdad as a slow driver.
Morrison was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center, as were the three people in the Envoy. The SUV’s driver, Lisa Pelkey, 46, and her passengers, husband Ray Pelkey and daughter Alyssa Pelkey, 11, remained at the hospital Wednesday, Bangor police Sgt. Paul Edwards said.
The four injured motorists or their family members have asked that their conditions not be released to the public, hospital officials have said.
Several eyewitnesses at the accident scene Sunday said it was the Envoy that was speeding and caused the accident. Edwards explained that eyewitnesses are often in shock after accidents, especially fatal collisions, and that is why accident reconstruction investigators must rely on the evidence they collect at the scene.
“I totally understand about the confusion,” the sergeant said. “It’s difficult when you have two cars with similar colors.”
Morrison’s minivan was a blue-gray color and the Envoy was silver-gray.
Some people, including eyewitnesses, who believe the fatal crash was caused by the SUV and who have seen the store’s surveillance video are still unwilling to trust what their eyes are seeing, said Thibeau.
“They still don’t want to believe,” the store owner said.
Wow…
And there it is. Guess the cops knew what they were doing all along. I’m sure they’ll accept your apologies.
I feel the need to apologize. I was so sure. I was so convinced. I dont understand how I could’ve been so wrong. I was not mean on here, nor did I make an insulting or support any conspiricy theories. But I was insistant about what I saw. I do apologize. I was apparantly wrong. But as I stated in my last comment, I am human and I do make mistakes. But I can own up to it, I make no excuses for my previous statements other than to say, I apologize What I thought to be so, was not. I do wish that the elderly gentleman recovers, I hope his heart heals when he finds out his wife has passed, how very tragic. I hope the family and that precious little girl recovers without too much trauma involving the accident. And I send my love and condolences to the family of the lady who passed. May you hold onto the memories of your loved one and cherish them forever.
I applaud you for being open and saying what you have. I was involved in an accident when I was a teen that took my father’s life, and the newspaper articles got things very wrong. So I know it can be very confusing and frustrating when you are a witness and then the media is also involved, etc.
At least now we know that there is enough conclusive evidence for them to know how it happened. My heart goes out to all involved, as it was indeed the worst accident I have ever seen (didn’t see it happen, arrived at the scene shortly after, before any emergency responders had arrived). My prayers are with the Morrison family and the other family who are still in the hospital.
Mom2abm – I’m sure this has been a horrible week for you. Please don’t be so hard on yourself. If they are having trouble figuring out what happened when watching and rewatching the videotape, it is not surprising that someone who witnessed it first hand might might have been confused as to what they saw (and please know I don’t mean any disrespect at all…). The vehicles were similar, it happened fast, and it was awful. I have no doubt you honestly believed it was the SUV. Please cut yourself some slack – anyone of us could have been in the same situation. You are obviously a very kind and sincere person and your words to the families say it all. Take care.
You were sure about what you saw and you stuck to your guns. That’s they way its supposed to be. You were polite, respectful and when it was all said and done, you were humble. What more can we reasonably ask? We are all merely human.
I hope you understand that reasonable people do not think you are a liar, we know that you stated what you believed. That is OK in my book.
As far as the rest of the people who didn’t see this incident with their own eyes and took strong positions, they should be ashamed of themselves. There is a reason we don’t ask victims and invested people to do their own investigations. There is a reason we ask neutral parties to come in and take a look at the situation. When police arrive, they offer stability in chaos, experience in things that none of us ever want to live through EVER, much less multiple times as they do. They offer a neutral look, as much as can be humanly expected. In this case, they arrived with patrolmen who helped rescue people and secure a major scene and reroute traffic at a major intersection, they offered reconstruction personnel who are trained and experienced with fatal crashes AND detectives. And without the benefit of videos or consistent eyewitness testimony, THEY MADE THE RIGHT CALL. Cheers to them.
And where would we be had the video not come out? All the conspiracy theorist and cop-haters would be still screaming about it. It would turn into the next Greeleaf case which would linger for years breading hate towards the police even though they made the right cal.
I’ll take less of them and more of “mom2abm’s” any day of the week.
Very well said. This is how discussion should happen, folks.
Thank you.
Police may have made the right call in the Greenleaf case . BDN had lots of statements about how he was beat up and no major retractions (or not enough)The real information about the case was not made public (“Gastia I could release the names but I won’t) did not help settle the case . Witnesses had many conflicting statements. Now the average person will never know what really happened we have to trust the police. I was in a car accident with the brother of a cop . Who bragged about fixing the police report to put me at fault . Trust comes hard for me . The media and police could have handled that case a bit differently and put some questions to rest. They chose not too. Like I said police court DA may be right. The question is would a different young men have got off so easy? That question can not be answered
I’m not going to dive into the Greenleaf case. I am as confident in the cops in that case as I am in this one.
As in this case, it is not the BDN’s job to investigate, it is their job to report. If people tell them something that is plausible, then it is likely going to get reported. That’s what they do. They are only reporting what they are being told. How do they retract that? It’s what they were told. Not only that, many of those people were sticking to their stories.
As far as the accident with the brother of a cop…I’ve heard this many times. I always take it with a grain of salt. There’s usually some element of truth in every story but some stories are too far fetched to believe. . I’ve seen cases where I knew with 100% confidence that it was not true because I was there and the mouthpiece telling everyone about it wasn’t. Most of the time its a simply a misunderstanding due to the lack of familiarity with the legal process.
Several questions immediately come to mind with your story but I’m taking no position on it because I have no basis of knowledge for your specific incident. I’m just expressing my experience.
Which reminds me. People in early articles about this crash were screaming conspiracy because the last name of the people in the SUV was the same as a Bangor cop. As thought there weren’t 500 unrelated families in northern Maine with that same last name. In the end there was no relation between the cops and the victims of this crash AND the police got it right.
Thank you for having the courage to admit you were wrong. I have been around accidents, etc…for many, many years and I know what people “think” they saw and what they really “saw” are often two different things.
It has nothing to do with courage, I was brought up to own up to my mistakes. Not to blame others for my actions. Admitting I was wrong was simply the right thing to do. I was not about to slink away without saying anything. Quite honestly this is the first time i have posted on the BDN website and I was expected to be hung out to dry, some people on here are quite harsh. I thank you all for your kind words.
Those people turned a tragic accident into a quest to be “right”. What we saw in the comments on those original articles was disgraceful.
I agree with you 100% !
How awful that it happened on their 20th anniversary. My Condolences to the Morrison family and hope for a good recovery for everybody else that was involved.
While I can understand (to a degree) the comment about “eyewitnesses
incorrectly remembering things”, you wouldn’t think that would also
apply to watching the video after the fact. 2 employees watched the crash on video and
saw the SUV, Tom and the Police saw the van.
I think the most sad revelation in this was that it was the elderly
couples anniversary the day it happened.
That and the “no medical
reason” he would have lost control, saying no stroke or heart attack had
taken place.
Hopefully the commenters here won’t second guess the Dr.’s the way they did the cops. The professional do what they do for a reason.
With that said, it’s hard to imagine that a medical condition didn’t contribute to this crash in some way. I’ll be curious to hear if there was other medical conditions other than stroke or heart attack that may have contributed. We may never know.
My thoughts are with all involved.
kinda telling that all the ones saying it was the fault of the SUV were wrong–good thing they didn’t have to rely on “witnesses”
Unbelievable that the so called witnesses won’t admit they were mistaken even after viewing the video. Do they think someone made it up?
I doubt it was out of any malicious intent, simply they saw what they saw. Same with the tape, as even watching that, different people saw different things. Apparently it took multiple viewings over a two day period to come to the conclusion they feel confident with, so I dont think it’s quite as “clear” as the reporter makes it sound, but more said in a way to try finalize the subject.
There was no sort of balance in witness statements in the first article, making it sound like all the witnesses saw the exact same thing (BDN reporters fault, not BPD’s fault). Clearly that wasnt the case, so SOMEONE with a dissenting opinion had to be available for a quote…Then the next article, there’s no retractions or corrections, simply a 180 in blame and unattributed quotes (unlike the first day).
And let’s be honest, BPD didnt do themselves any favors rushing out the press release that conflicted with what had just been reported and before even collecting all the evidence (especially a video).
The thing you said about them needing to view it several times to be sure makes a lot of sense, if you’re trying to figure how could witnesses be SO SURE they saw the SUV at fault. If even the video (objective evidence) requires repeated viewings, I guess it makes sense that those seeing it in real-time (and fast time it was!) could be confused.
I feel so bad for that poor elderly man.
That’s why eyewitnesses are notorious for being untrustworthy.
“Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.”
Makes you wonder how much “Oh my Gosh! Did you see that? What happened?” was going around when people looked up after the smashing and banging happened, after the tire screeching started.
They only saw bits and pieces and then I’m sure they talked amongst themselves, inadvertently influencing each others’ stories in what they “saw” and then filling in each others’ blanks that way.
The first thing people whine about when the BDN puts out a basic headline with no further information is that there aren’t enough details. The BDN puts people on the ground and gets some basic eye witness statements to provide SOME idea of what happened for their readers and now people are pissed because the witnesses were wrong.
Who said the BPD rushed the statement out? Why would they care? They have no problem taking their time on anything else out. Seems they had all their ducks in a row because when they whole community was questioning them, they didn’t even blink. Bravo to them, I know I would have been scrambling, second-guessing etc.
With all the conspiracy theories in the previous articles I am surprised no one has suggested the video was not played backwards and in reverse.
I don’t understand why so many people are thrilled by driving fast.
Well, according to the story, he was typically a slow driver. They are implying that there is a reason he was driving fast, i.e.- vehicle malfunction, heart attack, etc. Yet they seem to have ruled out anything medical, so who knows. Unless he recovers enough to recount the accident, we may never know what happened.
PS- Am I the only one who was confused by the line, “Ralph Morrison, who is her stepfather, was seriously injured…”. Being a seperate paragraph, maybe they should have noted it as “Raph Morrison, McCasserty’s stepfather, was seriously injured…” I thought they were talking about his wife when they mentioned stepfather, but I guess that’s what I get for skimming over names and such things…
Yes. People in their 70s usually don’t drive fast. Something must have happened. That is very sad. What a terrible loss for the family.
They didn’t rule out “anything” medical. They ruled out heart attack and stroke. (according to this story)
Does anyone else remember reading (in the comments) that he was having a seizure and the wife was trying to help?
Yes, someone posted that. I think it was someone that knew one of the ladies in the Camry. It said that he (Mr. Morrison) was having a seizure and that his wife was trying to help him but it was too late. I guess I don’t know how anyone other than the Morrison’s would know about this. The comment is gone now too.
I seriously doubt this man was trilled by any means.
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I’m sure we’d all like to see it but I don’t believe the police or the store are obligated to do so. That said, most of the curiosity is generated by people fed the conspiracy theories, take that out of it, it’s a little creepy and morbid that we would want to see that.
When coming down that hill heading towards the light, I have to hit my brakes a few times because I pick up speed quickly, and thats even when I am going 25 on top of the hill, So if they were driving faster than the speed limit at the top of the hill then I can understand how they could go so fast down the hill. Such a sad tragedy
Do you think we can stop the speculation about this now!!! A woman has died. Her husband remains in the hospital. A whole family is still in the hospital. This has been speculated to death. Please STOP!!!!
Thank the lord someone flagged her comment. ITs geting bad with this poster
Honestly, i couldn’t care less on who hit who. All i know is that my grandmother, is finally up in heaven. All that matters to me is that I know that my grandmother (Diane) is home, and i’m praying that ( Ralph) my grandfather will soon get better so we can go back to doing things like watching the red sox, and talking about sports from school and how he always loved golf. In time, i know he will get better but right now we just need love and family and friends. I love you grammie, and i will never forget the things that we did together, and all of the happy times we’ve spent. Thank you for everything.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Honey I am so sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you and wishes for a speedy recovery for your grandfather.
My heart goes out to you
So sorry for your loss. May she RIP and I hope your grandfather gets well soon.
Victoria, i am so sorry to hear of your loss. It is real sad. I was out there when this happened having ice cream. I ran over to help but they just would not let me near anything as there were others trying to help. Your grammie is with Jesus right now and i pray that your g randfater will get better soon
Victoria, Ralph’s mom and my mom were sisters. They were very close and lived near each other for most of their lives. I got to know your grandmother, Diane at my brother, Will’s family gatherings. Diane was such a sweet lady. You were very lucky to have Diane as your grandmother, and my cousin, Ralph was very lucky to have Diane as his wife. Diane is definitely home in Heaven, and will always be with you and all her loved ones in spirit until we are all home. May Ralph and everyone involved be able to heal from this horrible tragedy.
They are not going to because it involves a death, how the BDN got their hands on it and for what reason I am curious about though as usually tragic footage is kept between authorities and you have to take their word for it, or they release a small segment of it, which in this case they still probably would not. Basically it is asking them to release footage to basically watch someone die.
IHe may never remember what happened or it could be years I know of a situation where a girl was almost killed in an accident she had no idea why she left the road 10 years later she was passing that spot as she had done 100 times since and bam it came back to her when she did the exact same thing that caused the previous accident it was distracted driving
Why would you ever even WANT something like that released to the public? I, for one, don’t want to see something so horrible.
And why should they? It’s not our business to see.
Interesting also that smoke was billowing from the vehicle before it hit the other vehicle something wrong there mechanically?
No it was the smoke from all 4 tires of the vehicle skidding about 125′. The skidmarks are still on Broadway despite the rain yesterday.
I wondered the same thing. Hopefully there will be something significant to report after the car has been thoroughly examined.
Well since i was not there, i took the same stories and comments from the posters on here and I must apologize for not giving the police time to figure it out. I dont apologize often when it comes to Bangor’s finest, so ya might wanna mark this one down. My prayers go out to all of the families involved in this tragedy and expecially to the man whom lost his wife. I have no idea what i would do without my precious wife with me. I pray i never find that out.
Well well looks like all the armchair investigators on here were wrong…….sounds like the suv driver deserves an apology.
The “armchair investigators” did their job and put the pieces together to find out what REALLY happened. That’s what an investigation is. What they “think” might have happened while at the scene often turns out to be quite different, as is the case here.
Sounds like they should go back to watching CSI and let the real investigators at Bangor PD do there job instead of making public accusations against someone when they obviously had no clue what they were talking about. lololololololol0l.
And then I’m guessing you’d complain because they weren’t releasing any information (sigh)
You’re doing it wrong.
“did their job”???? You mean drawing conclusions in the absense of ANY evidence? You mean calling for the driver of the SUV to be locked up?? You mean putting an innocent family through the ringer based on NOTHING??? This is why jury’s are asked NOT to discuss cases among themselves prior to ALL the evidence has been presented.
Exactly!!!! Judge first, ask questions later the BDN comment section way!!!! All the pretentious comments about the suv driver, the internet tough guys on here wanted to grab their pitch forks and burn her at the stake. Maybe that will be a lesson to get all the facts before you open your trap. Doesn’t surprise me at all though, even duct tape can’t fix stupid!!!
well said to both you and jd2008jd,so where are the “bully’s” that were on here constantly jumping down people’s throats whenever we said anything in favor of the suv,when all we tried to do was suggest to wait….. I know my comments were constantly jumped on!!!!!
“Current remains under investigation” in no way, shape nor form means a definitive ‘conclusion” to me. Further, if I recall correctly, the initial article stated that “eye witnesses” reported the SUV as the one who ran into the other vehicles. That’s not a statement of what actually happened, but reporters will be happy to report such speculation regardless. Sure, I feel bad that the driver of the SUV was incorrectly blamed, but am also quite happy that we have law enforce who DID their job to show what really happened and correct the mistake. Some people on here just love to jump on police officers (and with all due respect, it seems many of them are in complete ignorance when it comes to the investigation process and are merely CSI detective wanna bes.
I was going to write a well thought out response and then after reading it a second time I decided that it wasn’t worth it. You seem convinced that the “armchair investigators” of the BDN comment page some how contributed to the BPD putting the pieces together…that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Oh wow! I just went back and read the initial post I had responded to. I owe both you and askjeeves an apology. I couldn’t not agree with you guys MORE than REPORTERS should stop playing investigator! No, they didn’t contribute a thing to the investigation!! I thought the post I responded to was downing the POLICE OFFICERS! My bad and I obviously should not read and respond in haste. If you guys are referring to BDN needing to go back to watching CSI, I couldn’t agree MORE! I apologize for MY misunderstanding
Now I get it, I was pretty confused by your posts LOL! My point was the people who wanted to lynch the poor suv driver need to shut their cake hole until they get all the facts! All these “witnesses” wah wah I saw this I saw that, my uncle bobs brothers cousin knows a guy who farted in church who saw what really happened. Well guess what next time put down the bath salts before you drive because you obviously saw something other than what REALLY happened LOL!!!
Yes, I read your post very quickly and thought you were bashing the police work. I was obviously the one confused, and causing the confusion LOL. Reporters will do just about anything sometimes to give the public the most information they can without paying much regard to accuracy. In this case, it caused a lot of uncalled for comments regarding the SUV driver and that is unfortunate. Regardless, I hope that the gentleman makes a full recovery and can heal from the loss of his wife, and I hope all of the others involved make a full recovery. It’s a very unfortunate accident, regardless of who is to blame.
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?????
I know this is deviating from the issue, but this is exactly why I am opposed to the death penalty. It’s not that I think horrible criminals who commit heinous crimes shouldn’t die for their crime, it’s because of the inevitabilty of human error in “eye-witness” testimony. Thank God for the tape of the accident. I’m sure the driver of the Envoy does not want to take the blame for someone else’s accident.
Well I guess I did read the last story right. Thanks to all those who told me the story was written wrong, but I guess it turns out it wasn’t.
Truly a tragic event. I hope the people involved find healing.. With that said I cant believe the one who posted they were almost run off the road by the suv at W ZON then contunied to watch them go down the hill by DD and then crash into everyone… Seriously I feel that you should have just kept your mouth shut. Anyone who knows that stretch knows you can’t see DD from W ZON!!!! I knew with that statement you had no clue what you were talking about. AND if I had to venture a guess you were sitting at home smoking your Pal Mals listening to the scanner over on Ohio St. then called a cab to take you over for your thorough investigaion….!!! Do us all a favor and stop posting.. You’re an embarrassment … AND THAT’S MY TWOSCENTS..
I have noticed alot of comments are speculating on what happened. Why do all we just let this family rest right now, get the grandfather up and moving and let diane rest in peace. Please, i am no relation but some of these comments are just plain insane on the family
I couldn’t agree more!!
“It was their anniversary and they were on their way to church,”
…if reading that just doesn’t break your heart then you need help and have issues…
for you “arm chair detectives”…most of you suck….not all…but most…
for the Morrison-McCafferty-Pelkey families…..I am sorry this happened…you are in my thoughts and prayers…
As Ralph and Diane’s Pastor in Florida this news is very sad
as Ralph and Diane are beautiful and loving people. I grieve for Diane yet I
also celebrate as she is now in the arms of Jesus. Of that I have no doubt. I
pray for Ralph and the family as they move forward. May God make sense of this tragedy
and be with those involved as they all heal. Know that we are praying here in
Florida for all of you.
Shame on the people that jumped to conclusions and were ready to put that poor driver of the SUV in jail! Thankfully we have the the cops to figure out the truth. As for the people in the SUV they will probably never be able to say what happened, I know from experience. Just a few months ago I was riding with my daughter driving and we were in bad accident the next intersection over on Ohio and griffin. A elderly women ran the red light and hit us head on. I still to this day cannot tell you what happened(probably shock and the concussion) all I know is that we were going through the intersection and then it was it like the world exploded, luckily for us both vehicles were totaled but no one was seriously injured. I am thankful every day for that. Pray for these people and hope to god it never happens to you.
I personally knew Diane Morrison and she would be the first person to tell everyone to stop with the speculating and please support her family during this tragic time. She was a beautiful, upbeat, Christian, lovely lady.
This artical is BS why is it the when police get there mind set on one thing there is no changing their mind?? IM related to the people that were drinving the minvan and this artical is putting it all on them the guy is barely even consious and dosent even know his wife is gone yet give the guy time to heel then go get his side of the story dosent make more sense that the other people were speeding and not the 72 year old man??? And take a look at everything with the vehical and make sure that something didnt happen with that first. yall are making it look and sound like he tried doing it on purpouse or something.