Family demands answers after pregnant woman is killed in crash

CALHOUN COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC/Gray News) - A family is mourning the loss of a 19-year-old pregnant woman and her unborn child after she was killed in a crash on an Alabama highway.

“She was having a boy, and his name was gonna be Aanai Kaier,” Sherrika Allen said. Her daughter, Tanysia Middlebrooks was eight months pregnant and traveling from Georgia to visit a school in Alabama with her unborn child’s father when she was killed.

Allen described her daughter as a happy and sassy person and said their last conversation was about Tanysia Middlebrooks’s upcoming baby shower.

“All around, she was loved everywhere,” Allen said.

Alabama State Troopers reported the incident took place at about 6 a.m. Jan. 26 on U.S. 431, just north of Anniston, Alabama. According to the preliminary investigation, Tanysia Middlebrooks had exited her vehicle after being involved in a prior crash when a semitruck struck her car, pushing it into her, resulting in her death. Her family confirmed that her unborn child also did not survive.

Now, her mother and her father, Tavares Middlebrooks, are left seeking clarity regarding the circumstances surrounding their daughter’s death.

“It’s just a lot of unanswered questions we don’t know the answer to, and we want to know what really happened,” Tavares Middlebrooks said.

Tavares Middlebrooks, who is familiar with driving semitrucks, offered his perspective on the events of the crash and raised concerns about the attentiveness of the truck driver.

“For me, I drive tractor-trailers. How I feel is that he wasn’t paying attention. You can see further down the road than someone in a regular vehicle. There shouldn’t have been no reason he couldn’t see ahead of him,” he said.

The grief-stricken parents are determined to keep Tanysia Middlebrooks’s memory alive as they continue their quest for answers.

“I just want to remember her as a happy, you know, just remember her smiling,” Allen said.

The 57-year-old man who was driving the truck has not been charged with a crime as per the information provided by Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

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