THREE KILLED IN ACCIDENT AT PERRYVILLE

Three people were killed early Sunday morning in a one-vehicle accident on Main Street in Perryville.

Benjamin DeClue, 24; his brother Tate DeClue, 27; and Jenny Buchheit, 19, all of Perryville, were killed in the accident at 1:45 Sunday morning. The accident occurred on Main Street, two-tenths of a mile from Highway 51.

The Missouri Highway Patrol reported that the driver of the car, Benjamin DeClue, lost control of the vehicle. The car slid off the road, into the grass and down an embankment where it struck a tree.

None of the three was wearing a seatbelt, the patrol said.

The accident was among four multiple-death auto accidents in Missouri over the weekend that claimed the lives of 13 people, including five family members in one collision in southwest Missouri.

Two sisters and their three young children were killed in a fiery collision Friday with a tanker truck, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

In addition, there were two triple-fatality accidents and one double-fatality collision, the patrol said.

In the tanker crash, Cheri Owens, 21, and her sons, Bret Divine, 3, and Dustin Heiskill, 1, were killed, along with Barbara Owens, 20, and her son, 11-month-old Deven Robertson.

The sisters had recently moved to Granby and were working as nurses' aides at the Granby House nursing home.

The patrol said Cheri Owens, 21, was driving about 6 p.m. when the car crossed the center line of U.S. 71 into the path of the tractor-trailer. The crash happened about a mile north of Anderson.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, Gale Jule, 50, of Calumet, Okla., was not injured.

At about the same time Friday near Centertown, three people were killed in a head-on crash on U.S. 50 west of Jefferson City, the patrol said.

A car driven by Nicholas Feely, 18, of Jefferson City, was on the wrong side of the highway when it hit another car head-on about 6 p.m., the patrol said.

Feely was killed, along with a passenger, Michael Stotler, 24, of Jefferson City; and the driver of the other vehicle, Gregory Haslag, 25, of Tipton, the patrol said.

In the double-fatality, two Excelsior Springs residents died late Saturday after a car went out of control and hit a utility pole in Clay County north of Kansas City.

The driver, Randi Simpson, 17, and a passenger, Michael Jones, 18, were killed, the patrol said. The accident happened about 10 p.m. on a county road near U.S. 69.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.