Collette Moreno was remembered as fun-loving and beautiful by friends before the bride-to-be was buried Wednesday after she died in a car crash last week on the way to her bachelorette party at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.
Moreno, 26, was in the passenger seat of a car driven by her friend and maid of honor, Ashley Theobald, when the accident occurred June 20 on Missouri State Highway 5 in Morgan City,
authorities told KCTV.
Theobald told authorities she was trying to pass a tractor-trailer whose exhaust fumes were causing Moreno to have an asthma attack, according to the television station.
Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll
Missouri Highway Patrol troopers told KCTV, though, that Theobald attempted to pass in a hilly no-passing section of the two-lane highway where the crash occurred, hitting a truck traveling in the opposite direction nearly head-on.
Moreno, who was wearing her seatbelt, died at University Hospital in Columbia. The television station reported that Theobald suffered minor injuries while Melvin E. Garber, 25, the driver of the truck, was not injured.
Authorities told KCTV that Theobald would be charged with careless and imprudent driving but will not face more serious criminal charges in Moreno's death.
"She had bad asthma and there was a truck in front of us that was releasing a lot of exhaust," Theobald told the television station. "She started coughing. We both thought it was clear and there was a hill that neither one of us saw. I tried to go around and there was a truck coming and I swerved and he swerved with me."
Family and friends told KCTV that about 10 minutes before the accident Moreno took a selfie of her and Theobald, who appears to have both hands on the steering wheel, but did not believe texting and driving had anything to do with the accident.
Moreno was to be married to Jesse Arcobasso, 28, on July 26 in Jamaica,
according to WDAF-TV. He told WDAF-TV that he found the news of the accident hard to believe, considering how close they were to getting married.
"I was just trying to hold on to the fact that she was going to be okay," said Arcobasso.
Urgent: Assess Your Heart Attack Risk in Minutes. Click Here.
Related Stories:
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.