The driver of a vehicle involved in a single-car crash in McMinn County that claimed the lives of two Cleveland High School students from Cleveland, Tennessee, faces two counts of vehicular homicide among other charges.
Jaylen Deandre Wesley-Cook, 22, the alleged driver of the 2019 Hyundai Sante Fe involved in the deadly crash, is charged in connection with the deaths of the two students identified as Air’ra Milchea’ Wilson, 17, and Shytez Daran Jackson, 16, according to authorities. Wilson and Jackson were passengers, and an unnamed third passenger was critically injured.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol investigated the April 26 crash in Cherokee Crossing, a narrow paved road that parallels the Hiwassee River in Calhoun.
“The driver’s reckless conduct placed himself and all four passengers in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury,” Trooper James Dalton states in an affidavit on the crash filed in McMinn County General Sessions Court. “Due to the driver’s reckless operation of the vehicle and nature of the crash, two juveniles were killed as well as another Black juvenile female being airlifted to Erlanger hospital with a skull fracture and is currently in critical condition.”
When he reached the scene, Dalton found the Hyundai on its top, one juvenile inside the car and the other lying beside it, the affidavit states.