{"id":261893,"date":"2026-08-09T02:34:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T02:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/261893\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T02:34:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T02:34:22","slug":"philadelphia-truck-driver-found-guilty-in-turnpike-crash-that-killed-father-and-two-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/261893\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia truck driver found guilty in Turnpike crash that killed father and two children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia truck driver found guilty in Turnpike crash that killed father and two children<\/p>\n

\"Jere<\/a>PENN TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\n

A jury has found Santos Valentin, a 31-year-old truck driver from Philadelphia, guilty of homicide by vehicle and involuntary manslaughter in a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in July 2024 that killed a father and his two children.<\/p>\n

The assistant district attorney told the jury that Valentin turned his double tractor-trailer into a “missile” that careened down the highway because he was paying attention to his phone instead of the road.<\/p>\n

Valentin testified that he was using an app on his phone to search for a gas station.<\/p>\n

The crash occurred in Penn Township, about three miles east of the Lancaster-Lebanon interchange, and claimed the lives of 43-year-old Donnell Hickson of New York, his 18-year-old son Decir, and his 11-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia truck driver found guilty in Turnpike crash that killed father and two children PENN TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[110873,110874,110875,110876,53261,5855,16949,110879,457,43797,16644,110880,110877,237,29951,4696,69,71,70,110883,110882,4528,110878,110881,6967,2812],"class_list":["post-261893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-11-year-old-daughter","tag-18-year-old-son-decir","tag-31-year-old-truck-driver","tag-43-year-old-donnell-hickson","tag-assistant-district-attorney","tag-child","tag-father","tag-guilty-of-homicide-by-vehicle","tag-homicide","tag-involuntary-manslaughter","tag-jury","tag-killed-a-father-and-his-two-children","tag-lancaster-lebanon-interchange","tag-new-york","tag-penn-township","tag-pennsylvania-turnpike","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-truck-driver","tag-philadelphia-trucker","tag-phone","tag-santos-valentin","tag-triple-fatal-crash","tag-vehicle","tag-wgal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}