| Notes |
- Friends Remember
Victims recalled as being warm, carefree
BY BERNIE PETERSON
KAUKAUNA - The people came in small groups, pulling their cars alongside the shoulder of State 55 and walking over to the west side of the road.
They looked around at the scattered pieces of wreckage, saying
little or nothing. Most of them didn't stay long because it was cold and drizzly, just like the night before.
There really wasn't much to look at because the two battered cars had been towed away and locked up at the county garage, where no one could get in to look at them.
But still the people came to look, because for many it was their
friends and relatives who died here Friday night. Five died. One more was critically injured.
Authorities were calling it one of the worst traffic accidents in Outagamie County history.
There were the two cars. As best as police could figure out, one was traveling south on 55, probably at a high rate of speed. The other
was moving east on Lau Road. Maybe it had just pulled out from
the stop sign. Nobody really knows for sure.
But there was such a terrible impact that the two cars continued
south from the point of the crash some 200 feet through a ditch and
into a farm field.
Five of the six were thrown clear. The other was trapped in his
car. He was Bill Van Eperen, 21.
Bill had bought that 1974 Pontiac new just three months before. He had left his route 2, Kaukauna home about 8 p.m. Friday to do
some socializing.
Two and one-half hours later he lay dead, pinned in the wreckage of his new car.
"Bill always had a smile on his face," recalled a buddy, Mike
Romenesko, as he surveyed the crash scene. "He was the type of
guy who would go out of his way to say 'hi' to you."
A classmate from Freedom High School would say later how she remembered the time when Bill accidentally shoved his elbow through a glass door at the school after being chased by another student.
Not that Bill was a troublemaker, said Linda Vanden Berg. He was just carefree.
Norman Green looked at the muddy farm field and wreckage remnants. His cousin Dennis and another friend Donald Braun were in the car with Bill.
"They were all good buddies," he said. Don, 18, managed to survive the crash. Dennis, 19, didn't. He was dead on arrival at a hospital at 11 :24 p.m.
"They were all real easygoing," commented another friend of the
three, Bob Fox. "They tried to be friends with everybody."
All had graduated from Freedom High School, Bill in 1970, the
others last May. Nobody seems quite sure where the three were between the time Bill left home and the time the two cars collided at 10:35 p.m.
Police belIeve Bill was driving south on 55 just prior to the crash. Quite possibly he was heading for the Starlite Bar, a little more than a mile down the road. There was a dance being put on there by the Freedom Mets baseball team.
Most of their friends would be there. "You would expect these
three to be there," said their former high school principal, John
Schwaller.
About quarter to seven, Richard Lenhart's parents dropped him off at the home of Scott and Wayne Ellis in Kaukauna. Richard and
Wayne were juniors together at Kaukauna High School. Scott had
dropped out of Wrightstown High the year before to take a job as a
truck driver.
Together the three went downtown to the VFW Hall in a 1964
Chevrolet Scott had just bought the day before. They were going to the regular Friday night high school dance at the hall.
They were still there a few minlues before 10:30. Scott and
Wayne's sister Kim saw them there at that time.
Soon afterward, Scott, Wayne and Richard got into the Chev with another friend, who lived on Lau Road north of the city, and who
needed a ride home. As of today, authorities were still attempting to
learn the identity of this person.
Wherever the cars were heading, they collided at 55 and Lau Road. The wreckage was not a pretty sight.
By 6 a.m. Coroner Bernard Kemps had completed most of his
preliminary work. He had been one of several persons who worked
until dawn collecting information.
His investigation showed that Van Eperen died from massive
internal chest injuries; Green from a fractured neck; Lenhart from a skull fracture and brain injuries, and the Ellis brothers from fractured
necks.
Braun underwent surgery Saturday morning for head injuries and
hospital officials said later that his condition improved from critical to
serious.
"We worked under very adverse conditions. It was drizzly and
muddy," said Kemps of the initial investigation.
He said the pavement at the intersection was wet, but it was clear
of ice. The preliminary investigation did not turn up skidmarks,
which is somewhat unusual, since the intersection shows excellent
visibility in all four directions. It would seem that one of the drivers
should have seen the second car approaching.
The investigative work continues. Kemps has not ruled out calling an inquest.
Going through his records, Kemps said it was the worst crash
in the county since four people died in a two-car collision on U.S.
45, just northwest of Greenville in 1954. In 1950. seven teenage youths died in a Single-car crash in Appleton.
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1957 - 1974 (17 years)
