15-Year-Old Driver, 2 Passengers Die in Crash

On almost any Wednesday night for the past two years, JoKema Du Bois, 15, and her 14-year-old sister, Barbara, would either call their pastor for a ride or get their grandmother to drop them off for youth night at a church in Santa Clarita.

The girls were too young to drive.

But on Wednesday, JoKema hopped into the driver’s seat of her grandmother’s Chrysler LeBaron anyway. Piling in behind her were Barbara and several friends: Gena Watkinson, 15, Alicia Acevedo, 14, and 3 1/2-year-old Jesica Noell, who lived with a boarder in the Du Bois home.

Someone put seat belts around Jessica in the back seat, but she was not restrained in a child safety seat, authorities said.

A few hours later, after the girls had listened to a sermon on eternal life, police said JoKema lost control of the car, sideswiped a pickup truck and slammed head-on into a second truck.

By the end of the night, JoKema and Gena were dead, and Barbara and Alicia were hospitalized in critical condition. Jesica died Thursday afternoon.

Three people in the vehicles they hit were not seriously injured, authorities said.

The accident occurred about 8:30 p.m. on a straight stretch of Seco Canyon Road near Santa Clarita Park, where JoKema lost control of the car, said sheriff’s Deputy Mark Slater.

Sharron Eineke, a Saugus resident, said she was driving her pickup west on Seco Canyon Road when she noticed JoKema’s car swerving between two lanes. Eineke said the car crossed the center divider and she could do nothing to avoid a collision. JoKema’s carstruck Eineke’s truck in the left lane and then collided with a Toyota Land Cruiser in the right lane, authorities said.