A Florida mother is grappling with an unimaginable loss after a fiery crash on the Florida Turnpike killed all three of her adult children and three others who were traveling with them.
The group was headed to Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights for what their parents described as the siblings’ first trip together when the crash occurred late Friday night, October 23, in the northbound lanes near mile marker 252 in Orange County.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a Road Ranger roadside assistance truck had been positioned in the median with its emergency lights activated while responding to an earlier incident. The driver, a 28-year-old man from Kissimmee, then began moving across the roadway to assist a disabled box truck on the outside shoulder. A 2023 Chevrolet Traverse traveling north in the inside lane struck the right rear of the Road Ranger truck. Witnesses told investigators the SUV was moving at a high rate of speed and traveling without its headlights on. Both vehicles left the roadway and caught fire. The six people inside the Traverse were trapped and pronounced dead at the scene. The Road Ranger driver sustained only minor injuries.
Among those killed were siblings Charles, Jakara, and Dalvena, along with their significant others and a friend. Their mother, Marshall Clarke-Milton, a Bahamian woman living in Florida, told FOX 35 Orlando she had sensed something was wrong that night when she could not reach her children. After hearing about the crash, she contacted officials and provided their names.
“Once I gave them the names, the young lady told me, yes, we have two of them currently. So, my heart sank. Because somehow I knew it was them, but I didn’t want it to be them,” she said.
Clarke-Milton later posted on Facebook that she felt numb and could not sleep, questioning why her children had been taken. In interviews, she and the children’s father, Charles Milton Sr., spoke about the weight of losing all three at once. “It’s rough to lose one, it is rough to lose two, but three, it has been rough,” Milton Sr. said. “So, hour at a time, even that ain’t enough really… we trying, I’m trying.”
Clarke-Milton said their granddaughter is the reason they continue to get up each day. “Everything is for her. I’m happy that we were blessed with her, because without her we would have literally had nothing.” She added that she still catches herself expecting her children to walk through the door.
The parents have raised questions about the early accounts of the crash. Clarke-Milton said investigators need to fully examine the Traverse’s systems to determine the exact speed at impact and whether the headlights were on before the collision or were damaged afterward. “All of these things you have to investigate, and you have to check before you say this person was at fault,” she said.
The Florida Highway Patrol investigation remains open, with a full report expected within roughly 10 days. The National Transportation Safety Board has also opened its own probe, examining the Road Ranger driver’s training and performance, the actions of the SUV driver including speed, and restraint use by the occupants. Officials have not yet publicly released the complete names and ages of all six victims pending confirmation by the medical examiner.
The tragedy has drawn attention in both Central Florida and the Bahamas, where Clarke-Milton has family. As of late October, both investigations continue.
