Fort Myers police said the five teens killed when their car crashed into a retention pond Sunday night died from drowning. Three also suffered blunt force trauma.
Acting Captain Shawn Yates at a media briefing Friday afternoon said the department’s investigation remains active.
He confirmed that speed was definitely a factor in the fatal crash and added that damage seen on the vehicle was from it impacting with an embankment before it plunged into the pond and submerged.
"The pre-crash speed coming into the corner in the area this crash was 70 to 75 miles an hour. The speed limit on Top Golf Way is 25 miles per hour," Yates said.
Asked if the victims might have tried to get out of the submerged vehicle, Yates said that was being looked at. The acting FMPD captain said that the injuries that three of the victims received were survivable.
He added that investigators were also looking at text messages, phones, at conversations that may have occurred with friends and conversations the victims may have had with employees in different timelines.
He said social media tips and surveillance video of the vehicle have provided additional details.
"So we'll look at all that information and try to piece that together," he said. "We're going to look into all the circumstances around that. And that'll be part of the ongoing investigation, we're going to look into all factors, both pre crash and during the crash, to look at that. But we've got a ways, a lot of things to sort through, to be able to get any type of statement as to what occurred in the car pre- or during the crash."
Toxicology testing and the final findings of the medical examiner's office are pending, Yates said. Such testing usually take weeks for accurate results.
Police identified the victims as Eric Paul, 19, Jackson Eyre, 18, Amanda Ferguson, 18, Breanna Coleman, 18, and Jesus Salinas, 19. Yates said the driver and registered owner of the 2021 black Kia Forte was Salinas.
Yates said FMPD investigators would continue to look for any information that anybody has pertaining to the crash.
"So we can look at this incident as a whole," he said. "And try to find out the reasons that it was, again, the primary factor, it looks at speed, but we'll look at why was the speed occurring."
Yates said that police investigators recovered the vehicle's event data recorder, which is how they determined the vehicle's speed.
"We did a download of the event data recorder that was on that particular vehicle," he said. "We've got the preliminary information on that. But we're still sorting through that information."
FMPD spokesperson Sergeant Kristen Capuzzi said the teens seemingly lost control of the black Kia sedan before crashing into the retention pond and all five were declared dead at the scene.
Four of the crash victims — Eric, Jackson, Amanda and Breanna — worked together at the Fort Myers Texas Roadhouse. Salinas was a friend who worked at another area restaurant.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of four of our Roadies,” the Texas Road House restaurant wrote in a Facebook post. “Our team is grieving alongside their families and friends. We appreciate the support of our Ft. Myers community during this difficult time.”
At the end of the briefing Yates said that FMPD extends its deepest sympathies to the bereaved families and will continue to work to find the answers to the factors that led to the crash.
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