Neighbors in Plainfield held a vigil Wednesday night for three teens who were killed earlier this week in a crash in Kendall County. (Credit: CBS)
Reporting Bob Roberts
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PLAINFIELD, Ill. (CBS) — Neighbors paid a tribute Wednesday night to the three teenagers who died when a truck struck their car Monday near Oswego.
As WBBM Newsradio’s Bob Roberts reports, the vigil was held on the block in Plainfield where one of the victims lived.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Bob Roberts reports
All of the more than two dozen families who live on the 24200 block of Apple Tree Ln. – where crash victim Brian Herrera, 19, and his family have lived in a big corner house – placed memorial candles in bags and put them out on the driveway.
Herrera was driving with two passengers – Tyler Montgomery, 19; and his girlfriend, Alexis Banuelos, 18 –when he pulled out from a stop sign on Schlapp Road in unincorporated Kendall County near Oswego, into the path of an eastbound truck on Illinois Route 126. All three were killed.
Maureen Stahulak said her neighbors didn’t need any coaxing to come out for the vigil.
“This is a family that lost a child,” Stahulak said as she fought back tears. “Two other families have lost their children. That’s what it’s about – showing unity, showing that we care about them, the fact that we are part of a neighborhood and, more than a neighborhood, we are a family.”
Stahulak says Herrera was well-liked and the class cut-up at Plainfield North High School. Funeral services are set for Saturday.
The memorial is not the only one planned for the victims. Friends of the victims gathered through much of the day Tuesday and Wednesday at the crash scene. And Stahulak said residents of the subdivision plan to wrap every tree in Plainfield North’s school colors, crimson and white, to honor them.
Montgomery graduated from Plainfield North in 2010 and Banuelos, of Naperville, graduated from the school a year ago. Both most recently attended Joliet Junior College.
Herrera was last enrolled in one of Plainfield North’s alternative programs in the spring of 2011 but did not graduate. His brother, Christian Herrera, said Brian was working two jobs and saving money to go to college in California.
