Two teens killed on street where doom was predicted

Friday, Sept. 17, 1999 | 11:36 a.m.

Residents of a quiet, tree-lined eastern Las Vegas Valley neighborhood predicted after a street paving project 18 months ago that a tragedy was going to happen.

The long-dreaded event finally happened early this morning when two teenage boys racing their car down the smooth-surfaced, two-lane street slammed into a tree in the front yard at 4667 E. Wyoming Ave. and died instantly.

Resident Teri Curtis said neighbors were asked to pay for the project but declined. "It would have cost us $8,000 apiece and besides, the cracks and potholes slowed down traffic. It was in bad shape, but you had to slow down, it kept the speed down."

Eighteen months ago, the project was completed publicly through the Regional Transportation Commission.

Since then, said Teri's husband, Tony, a music teacher at Fremont Middle School, the stretch of Wyoming Avenue between Nellis and Lamb boulevards has become a speedway -- especially late at night and early in the morning.

Shortly after 5:30 a.m. today the couple were shocked awake by the explosive sound of a Ford Taurus station wagon crashing into a mulberry tree in the front yard of the home the Curtises have owned for three years.

"At first I thought the sound came from my mother's bedroom at the west end of the house," Teri Curtis said.

Metro traffic investigators said the two unidentified teenagers were eastbound on Wyoming at a high rate of speed when they lost control of their vehicle and traveled 150 feet counter-clockwise, then clockwise.

The tail end of the car clipped a cinder block fence that separates the Curtis' home from their neighbors to the west and then hit the tree.

One witness believed the car was moving at 60 or 70 mph in a neighborhood where the speed should be 25, though the average speed is 35-45.

"They were flying," Teri Curtis said.

It was still dark outside.

Tony Curtis called 911, grabbed a drop-light and stepped outside to try to help the victims.

But it was futile.

"They were already dead," Tony Curtis said. "They must have died instantly. I may have known them. They could have been my students at one time."

He turned off the car's engine, which was still running.

Because of the darkness and crumpled wreckage, he couldn't see the faces of the victims and so still doesn't know if the boys ever sat in his classroom.

He conjectured the teenagers were on their way to either Las Vegas or Eldorado high school, both within a couple of miles of the neighborhood.

"The sad part is I don't think the speeding problem is all teenagers. We see adults, too. During the day it's pretty decent, but late at night and early in the morning it's dangerous here. We don't let our two children play in the front yard."

Teri Curtis said the sound of screeching brakes has become normal since the street was paved.

"There have been so many close calls, I can't even tell you," she said. "We are forever hearing screeching brakes."

Efforts to have speed bumps and stop signs installed have been futile, she said.

"We have tried and tried. We have sent letters and written petitions," Teri Curtis said.

Her husband said Metro Police have increased patrols of the area but can't be there all the time.

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