66-year-old Perlita "Pearl" Macala was driving home at 1:45 a.m. Thursday with her 72-year-old husband, Eugene. The two were killed instantly, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol, after striking a brick wall at a high rate of speed on the off ramp of Cheyenne and the 215.
Jodee Talley was traveling behind the two victims on the freeway moments before the crash and saw everything leading up to it.
"They were traveling at just a little bit of a higher rate of speed than me in the beginning – until they started braking," Talley recalled. "The reverse lights were flashing and then it just darted as if they had floored the vehicle."
According to Talley, the 2002 Toyota Camry the Macalas were in was braking normally to turn right on to Cheyenne. It slowed to about 40 miles per hour, she said, before the car's reverse lights flashed several times and the car took off, seemingly out of nowhere.
"It was hard to understand how the car went from slowing down to just in a flash slamming against the wall head on at such a high rate of speed," Talley said.
The NHP hasn't ruled anything out as the cause of the crash, including the possibility of a medical episode or sudden and automatic acceleration of the Camry.
"My first thought [was] that it was somebody just driving erratically," said Talley. "But it just didn't make sense once they actually collided with the wall."
The Macalas were to receive a surprise party for their 50th wedding anniversary next week in California, according to the victims' family members.
The NHP tells FOX5 that in order to receive information about a possible sudden acceleration of the vehicle, they first need to get an order from a judge to access the car's computer system.
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