Linzie Maxwell was behind the wheel of a black Chevy Impala heading east on Interstate 240 just past the Lamar Avenue overpass. Robert French sat in his silver Kia on the shoulder. He had stopped to check what he thought was a flat tire. Maxwell’s car hit the Kia from behind with heavy force. Both men died from their injuries right there on the road.
The impact threw French from his vehicle. Maxwell’s Impala kept going and smashed into a black Nissan Maxima. That car went down an embankment. The people inside the Nissan walked away with only minor injuries.
By the next day crews had hauled the wrecked cars away. Clothes, broken glass, and twisted metal still littered the shoulder. Family and friends of Maxwell and French started dealing with the sudden loss.
Investigators said the crash happened on a regular Saturday morning. Traffic moved along like any other day until the moment the Impala struck the Kia. French never got a chance to finish checking his tire. Maxwell never made it past that stretch of highway.
Hours later another wreck hit the city. A Nissan Altima turned in front of a Memphis Police Department cruiser. Three people went to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. The officer was not hurt.
Police kept looking into the I-240 crash. They wanted to understand how two men ended up dead in such a short time. The debris on the roadside stayed as a quiet mark of what happened.
Loved ones of Linzie Maxwell and Robert French faced the hard days that followed. The highway reopened, but the names of the two men stayed with the people who knew them.
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