A southwest Florida community mourned the five teenagers who were killed in a crash and found in a submerged car in a retention pond after their shift at Texas Roadhouse restaurant earlier this week.
The five teenagers were killed Sunday after they apparently lost control of a Kia sedan and crashed into a retention pond near a Topgolf, said Fort Myers Police. Officers found the victims Monday in the submerged car and all five were pronounced dead at the scene.
The incident marks the highest number of fatalities seen in a traffic incident in southwest Florida since March 2011, according to Florida Department of Transportation officials. Investigators believe speed was a factor in the fatal crash.
Police identified the victims as Eric Paul, 19; Jackson Eyre, 18; Amanda Ferguson, 18; Breanna Coleman, 18; and Jesus Salinas, 18. Paul, Eyre, Coleman, and Salinas were recent high school graduates while Ferguson had graduated last year and was attending college.
Four of the teenagers – Coleman, Paul, Eyre and Ferguson – had wrapped up their day of work at a nearby Texas Roadhouse restaurant, and were accompanied by Coleman’s boyfriend Salinas at the time of the crash.
Texas Roadhouse offered its condolences and also closed its doors Monday to host family and friends for a dinner in the victims’ memory.
“The environment with Texas Roadhouse, we were all young, we were all teenagers, we were all like best friends,” said Lylah Law, a former Texas Roadhouse employee who worked alongside Eyre, Paul, and Ferguson for about a year.
‘SADDENED BY THE TRAGIC LOSS’5 teens dead after car found submerged in Fort Myers, Florida; 4 had just ended work shift
Teenagers remembered by family, friends
Tributes for the victims began pouring in as family, friends, and community members remembered their loved ones. In the days since the incident, dozens have visited the crash site, leaving flowers next to the road and erected cross where the car entered the water.
More people were seen lighting candles, leaving flowers, and praying at the Texas Roadhouse, where some of the victims worked. A balloon release and memorial were planned for Thursday night in front of the restaurant.
Coleman was a recent high school graduate from Gateway High School. She was expected to attend the University of North Florida and wanted to become a nurse, said her friend Thalia DeLeon.
DeLeon described Coleman as a positive person who was always smiling.
“Her biggest impact I feel like she would leave is her intelligence,” DeLeon said. “It was beyond this world how smart she was, and I feel that the biggest impact people get is to strive for their goals just like she did and just to smile and to never doubt anyone.”
Paul recently graduated from East Lee County High School, where he wrestled, played football and attended the firefighting academy program. He had plans to become a firefighter/EMT and had less than a year of training left, said his father Andrew Cox.
“We loved life. We loved each other,” Cox said. “Now, there’s a connection piece that’s gone. It was beautiful, but now Eric is gone. How can we smile again?”
‘Brightest person in my life’
Eyre was remembered for his positivity that he displayed at such a young age. A recent graduate of South Fort Myers High, Eyre planned on becoming a welder and was enrolled to attend Fort Myers Technical College this fall.
Former South Fort Myers athletic director Chris Harris, who also worked Eyre’s father, called him a “leader.”
Friends described Ferguson as irreplaceable, special, kind and loving. After graduating from Lehigh Senior High in 2022, Ferguson started attending Florida SouthWestern State College while working at Texas Roadhouse.
She was a cheerleader, on the homecoming court and a class favorite, according to her friend Ariana Raldiris.
“Amanda was the brightest person in my life,” said her friend Kelsey VanMeter. “She would light up the room everywhere she was and she always had a smile on her face wherever she was.”
Salinas was Coleman’s boyfriend and a recent Lehigh Senior High School graduate. While Salinas didn’t work with the four other victims, his friend Arianna Costa told WBBH-TV that he was very close friends with them all.
“So ready to start his life and I remember him telling me he was going to go to Texas for like trade school,” Costas told the station.
Investigation into incident ongoing
According to Kristin Capuzzi, a spokesperson for Fort Myers Police, the car had crashed sometime overnight between 10:30 p.m. Sunday and early Monday.
Police found the car near a Topgolf on Monday morning after parents of the victims reported that their children had not come home from work, WINK-TV reported. The Texas Roadhouse was about a half mile from the crash site.
Capuzzi said investigators were at the site most of the day on Tuesday.
“It took a long time to get it out,” Capuzzi said of the car Tuesday afternoon. The five were declared dead at the scene.
The investigation into the incident is ongoing and Capuzzi said toxicology reports could take weeks or months.
Contributing: Tomas Rodriguez, Kate Cimini, Dave Osborn, Janine Zeitlin, Nikki Ross, Alex Martin, Amy Bennett Williams and Samantha Neely, Fort Myers News-Press
