DURHAM -- A Durham woman was killed and three others injured in traffic accidents that shut down Interstate 85 on Wednesday evening for about three hours, police said.
Michelle Leigh Smith, 35, of Sherron Road, was taken by helicopter to Duke Hospital, where she died of her injuries, according to Durham police spokeswoman Kammie Michael.
Smith was a passenger in a Chevrolet Lumina that crashed into the back of a tractor-trailer that had been involved in a previous accident in the southbound lanes of I-85 near Roxboro Road, Michael said.
According to traffic investigators, the first accident occurred at 5:12 p.m., when a southbound Western Star tractor-trailer driven by Lawrence Dixon Jr., 58, of McComb, Miss., apparently attempted to change lanes and clipped a Jaguar driven by Dwight Edward Mason, 53, of Durham.
The impact caused the Jaguar to spin in front of the tractor-trailer and then into the right side of a Chevrolet van driven by Jason Elijah Tabares, 29, of Hillsborough, police said.
Three minutes later, the Lumina, driven by Betty Ellis Stephenson, 63, of Sherron Road, hit the back of the tractor-trailer. According to witnesses, Stephenson hit the brakes and swerved in an attempt to avoid hitting the truck, police said.
Stephenson was taken to Duke for treatment of serious injuries, police said.
Mason and a passenger in his vehicle, Sallie Diane Mason, 47, of Durham, were taken to Durham Regional Hospital for treatment and then released, Michael said. Dixon, Tabares and a passenger in his van, Vernon A. Pratt, 28, of Durham, were not injured.
