Couple Who Drowned When Car Ran Into Pond Identified

Article published May 12, 2008
By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer
An elderly Tyler couple died Sunday night after their vehicle ran off their neighborhood road into a pond on the 2000 block of Woodlake Drive.
Police identified the couple who drowned after their car plunged into the pond as Jake Smith, 87, and his wife, Betty, 81. They were from Tyler.
Mr. Smith is a former president of Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce and was active in the Historic Aviation Memorial Museum.Services are pending at Burks Walter Tippitt Funeral Home in Tyler. The cause of the Sunday accident accident remains under investigation this morning.
Tyler police and fire officials responded at 9:19 p.m. when neighbor Doug Marshall called 911 to say a car had sped down his road through two yards and into a pond.Marshall shed his clothes and jumped into the water when he saw headlights shining some 6 feet below.
“I thought ‘There are people drowning under the water,’” he said. “But the lights turned off. I couldn’t find anything.”
Upon arrival, four police officers dove in with Marshall, located the car, found an open window and pulled a woman out.They then returned to the car and struggled to pull a man out.
“Oh god, oh god,” said Marshall, recalling the moment he identified his dead neighbors.
On the normally quiet private unlit street, the noise of a speeding car caused Marshall to initially leave his home and follow the tracks to the pond. He called 911 as he went.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” Marshall said. “But I saw the car lights in the water and thought ‘There are people in there.’”
Tyler Fire Department divers swam into the pond at 11 p.m. to attach a hook to the car to be towed. Martin said the car was traveling fast as it careened down a grass hill and crashed into a tree before sinking into the pond.
Officers who first dove in to retrieve the bodies stood wrapped in towels holding
Read the full story here.