Two SMART Transportation Division members and their local union brothers and sisters are in mourning after two sudden and untimely deaths.
Local 1565 member Laura Corley lost her son, Joey Trianders Allen, 43, of Lancaster, Calif., after police said a wrong-way driver slammed into his vehicle on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles early Sunday, Feb. 16.
The driver suspected of being drunk behind the wheel in the crash that killed Allen has been charged with murder and a number of other counts associated with the crash. Services for Allen took place March 7.
In Michigan, the family of Grand Elk Railroad employee and SMART-TD Local 313 Local Chairperson Todd Vaughn is mourning the death of Vaughn’s daughter, Alison Sargent, 25.
The body of Sargent, the mother of two daughters from Pennfield Township, Mich., was found Saturday, March 7, after she had been reported missing last Thursday.
A GoFundMe account was established to assist the family and Sargent’s children by a family friend.
No suspects have been identified in Sargent’s death, and police are continuing to investigate her death as a homicide.
SMART-TD expresses its deepest sympathies to both Sister Corley and Brother Vaughn in this time of unimaginable loss to them and to their families.