by The South Carolina Highway Patrol says that an accident on Interstate 26 late Monday night killed two people and badly hurt another.
The Newberry County coroner said Tuesday that 21-year-old Pedro Gutierrez from Gaston and 75-year-old Michael J. Oneill from Charlotte, North Carolina, both died in the crash.
Police Cpl. David Jones said the three-car accident happened around 11 p.m. on the eastbound side of I-26 near the 66-mile sign in the Jalapa area of Newberry County.
Jones says that a 2006 Ford van, a 2021 Chevrolet van, and a 2021 Nissan 4-door car were all traveling east on I-26. Jones said that the Chevy hit the back of the Ford, which made it spin out and hit the side of the Nissan.
Jones says the Ford driver was taken to a nearby hospital and later died there.
Jones said that there were two people in the Chevy. The driver was taken to a nearby hospital with major injuries, but the passenger died at the scene.
Jones says the driver of the Nissan wasn’t hurt. There were no other injuries recorded.
The cars that Gutierrez and Oneill were in at the time of the accident were not clear.
There was no more information available about the status of the Chevy driver.
No one who was in the accident was said to be wearing a seat belt.
No information was provided about what caused the Chevy to hit the Ford, but the Highway Patrol and coroner’s office are still looking into the accident. Kneece said that autopsies will be done this week on both Gutierrez and Oneill.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation says that at least one lane of I-26 was closed until around 1 a.m.
The South Carolina Department of Public Safety says that as of Sunday, 465 people had died on South Carolina roads in 2025. DPS said that at least 948 people died in accidents in South Carolina last year.
DPS statistics shows that at least seven people have died in crashes in Newberry County in 2025. DPS said that eight people died in the county in 2024.
The Highway Patrol says that a 48-year-old woman from Winnsboro died late Saturday night when the car she was driving crashed into a mailbox, a wooden post, a slope, and a tree.
