Three people were killed early Sunday when a wrong-way driver on Interstate 65 near Seymour slammed head-on into another vehicle, shutting southbound lanes of the interstate for about four hours.
Indiana State Police said Theosco Middlebrooks of Louisville was driving northbound in the southbound lanes in a 2005 Jeep Liberty when he crashed into a 2023 Ford Escape driven by Alyssa Osborn of Scottsburg. Middlebrooks and Osborn died at the scene. Osborn's 1-year-old son, Waylon, was critically injured and later died at a hospital.
The crash was reported just after 2:30 a.m. in the southbound lanes of Interstate 65 in Jackson County, about one mile south of Seymour. Police said the child was properly restrained in a car seat in the rear passenger side of the vehicle, a detail that underscored how violent the impact was.
Investigators believe alcohol consumed by Middlebrooks likely played a role in the crash, but toxicology results were still pending Sunday evening. That leaves one central question unanswered: why Middlebrooks was driving the wrong way on a major interstate in the first place.
For now, the loss is fixed and immediate. Two adults and a 1-year-old boy are dead, a busy stretch of Interstate 65 has reopened after hours of cleanup and investigation, and state police are still piecing together how a lethal mistake turned into a fatal collision in the dark.
