Jay County Deputy Recalls ‘Horrific’ Crash That Killed 4 Amish Men
PORTLAND, Ind. — Even after a decades-long career in law enforcement, Capt. Patrick Wells of the Jay County Sheriff’s Office struggled on Friday to think of many crashes that matched what he saw on State Road 67.
“I have been on the job almost 30 years and this would definitely rank among one of the most horrific crashes I’ve seen,” Wells said. “Just going to the scene was chaos.”
He was one of the officers who responded to Tuesday afternoon’s crash that ended with four people dead. Indiana State Police believe a semi swerved to avoid slowing traffic and struck a full-size van in the oncoming lane head-on.
Wells said the van, driven by 55-year-old Donald Stipp of Portland, was transporting five Amish construction workers from a job site when the crash happened.
As word of the wreck spread, Wells said, as many as 60 or more Amish family members and friends arrived to help, and ultimately, grieve.
“Families started showing up,” Wells said. “They started bringing them up in vans.”
The Jay County coroner identified the four van passengers who died as 50-year-old Henry Eicher, 25-year-old Menno Eicher, 19-year-old Paul Eicher, and 23-year-old Simon Girod. All four victims were from Bryant, a small town about 7 miles north of Portland.
The driver of the semi, Bekzhan Beishekeev, is a 30-year-old Kyrgyzstan national. The Jay County Sheriff’s Office initially took Beishekeev into custody and has since handed him over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was being held on Friday in the Fulton County Jail.
The White House says Beishekeev entered the country using the CBP One app, which migrants could use for asylum applications under the Biden administration. The Trump administration has since revoked the legal status for the 985,000 migrants who entered the U.S. with the CBP One app, citing a lack of rigorous vetting.
Abigail Jackson, a White House deputy press secretary, told News 8 on Friday that the app was “akin to making a restaurant reservation except to cross the southern border.”
Beishekeev had a Pennsylvania-issued commercial driver’s license to operate the semi. Jackson told News 8 that a federal audit was underway to determine how many undocumented workers have a CDL.
While the Amish are a small, tight-knit community, Wells said four deaths would be felt in lightly populated Jay County no matter their background. The county, with about 20,100 residents, is in east central Indiana, about a 2-hour drive northeast of downtown Indianapolis.
“To have four lives taken like that regardless is devastating in a community like ours,” Wells said. He believes some businesses are planning to close during funeral services for the victims.
Indiana State Police are handling the crash investigation.
