Amie Wells was killed Tuesday evening when the van she was driving hit a tractor-trailer at the intersection of Washington Street and Kittyhawk Avenue in Auburn.
AUBURN — Police identified a Greene woman as the driver of a van that slammed into the back of a tractor-trailer on Washington Street late Tuesday night just south of the Auburn exit of the Maine Turnpike.
Amie Wells, 41, was killed after she was clocked traveling close to 100 mph in a minivan in the southbound lane of the turnpike before exiting in Auburn, according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.
A trooper on the turnpike activated his blue lights in pursuit of Wells. She turned south on Washington Street, and as her van approached the intersection of Washington Street and Kittyhawk Avenue, it slammed into the back of a truck that had been stopped for a red light, McCausland said.
Wells was killed instantly; the driver of the truck, 40-year-old Vincent Moura Voelz of Little Elm, Texas, was not injured, McCausland wrote in a statement.
The truck is owned by Prime Trucking and had just left the Walmart distribution center in Lewiston. Wells was driving a 2000 Toyota Sienna van.
The crash site was cleared at 2 a.m. Assisting state police were the Auburn and Lewiston police departments and Auburn Fire and Rescue.
A witness reported that the driver of the van didn’t appear to brake before crashing into the back of the truck.
“I was sitting at the light on Kittyhawk turning left,” Garrett Whalen of Minot said Tuesday night. “Light changed green. I noticed the tractor-trailer start moving toward the breakdown lane and roughly 200 yards behind him was the speeding van being followed closely by the police car. The tractor-trailer had just started to turn onto Kittyhawk to clear the lane completely. I slowed down in the northbound lane and heard the van accelerate harder – never once hit (the) brakes – and watched the van drive underneath the trailer.”
Wells’ sister, Charlee Mason, said a GoFundMe account has been created in an effort to help Wells’ family defray funeral expenses. Contributors may find that account at: https://www.gofundme.com/jtl9o4. More information about Wells and her family may be found at that link.
Amie Wells
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