Tanner Hege was behind the wheel of a 2014 Buick Encore, westbound on Lincoln Way West in St. Thomas Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. He was trying to make a left turn onto Hade Road. According to Pennsylvania State Police, he turned directly into the path of an oncoming 2023 Indian motorcycle. The front left side of his Buick struck the motorcycle and threw both people off it. That was at 5:07 p.m. on Saturday, August 1, 2026. Ross B. DeShong, 54, and Paula N. Young, 50, both of Warfordsburg, were pronounced dead at the scene. No arrest had been announced as of Sunday. The investigation, however, was still going.
The detail that state police included in their official crash report is the kind that tends to follow a case closely. The report notates the crash as involving driving under the influence. That’s not a charge yet, but it’s not nothing. It’s a flag placed in the official record by the troopers who worked the scene, and it means something in the investigation that follows. Whether that notation leads to a criminal charge against Hege — or anyone else in the vehicle — is a question still being answered.
Hege was transported to Chambersburg Hospital after the crash, with injuries described as being of unknown severity. His two passengers — Alexandria C. Dupre, 30, of Chambersburg, and a 33-year-old woman — were not hurt. Nobody in his vehicle died. The two people on the motorcycle did. Both DeShong and Young were wearing helmets. They were eastbound, moving in a straight line, with the right of way. What they ran into was a car that turned left without clearing their lane.
This is the scenario that motorcycle safety advocates have repeated for years — the left-turning vehicle is one of the most common killers of motorcyclists on American roads. The driver of a car looks down a straight road, misjudges the speed of an oncoming bike, decides they have time, and turns. Sometimes they’re right. Saturday, in St. Thomas Township, Tanner Hege was wrong, and two people died for it. The DUI notation in the report adds a layer of weight that hasn’t been resolved publicly yet.
State police said the crash remains under active investigation. No contributing factors beyond the DUI flag have been named publicly. No charges had been filed as of Sunday. That’s how these things go — the scene is worked, the evidence is collected, the toxicology comes back on its own timeline, and then a prosecutor decides whether the facts support a charge. In Pennsylvania, a crash that kills two people and carries a DUI notation in the police report tends to receive a close look. What comes of that look hasn’t been announced.
Hege’s name is in the record. The DUI flag is in the record. DeShong and Young are buried somewhere in Franklin County, and their families know exactly how Saturday ended. What isn’t finished is the legal accounting of how it got there. Pennsylvania State Police are still working that part. Anyone who witnessed the crash at the corner of Lincoln Way West and Hade Road, or who has information relevant to the investigation, would likely find state police very willing to take that call.
Two people put helmets on before they got on that motorcycle. They followed every rule you’re supposed to follow. At 5:07 p.m. on a clear August afternoon, a left-turning vehicle took away every safety measure they had. Whether Tanner Hege faces charges for what happened at that intersection in St. Thomas Township is now a matter of record-keeping and law. What’s already on record is that Ross DeShong and Paula Young are gone, and the question of why — and whether it was avoidable — hasn’t been answered in a courtroom yet.
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