{"id":293811,"date":"2026-05-15T01:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T01:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/293811\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T01:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T01:54:09","slug":"texas-dps-identifies-victim-in-belton-convenience-store-car-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/293811\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas DPS identifies victim in Belton convenience store car crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Officials have identified the person who died in a car crash on FM 439 on Wednesday in Belton.<\/p>\n<p>BELTON, Texas \u2014 The Texas Department of Public Safety announced an update to Wednesday&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcentv.com\/article\/news\/local\/truck-drives-into-convenience-store-belton\/500-47cf4e36-6b2c-4e11-99b8-cfacc2d4e7ad\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">deadly crash<\/a> in Belton that killed one person.<\/p>\n<p>According to Texas DPS, 50-year-old Vernon Richard Loechel, of Belton, was driving a 2010 Audi westbound on Farm-to-Market Road 439 while a 2010 Peterbilt trash truck was traveling eastbound.<\/p>\n<p>According to the lead investigator, the Audi crossed into the eastbound lane and into the path of the Peterbilt, causing a crash. The impact sent the trash truck across the westbound lane and into a convenience store. Investigators have not said why Loechel crossed into the eastbound lane.<\/p>\n<p>Loechel was pronounced dead at the scene by Justice of the Peace Duffield. The driver of the trash truck was reportedly taken to Baylor Scott &amp;White with non-serious injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Texas DPS is investigating the crash. Loechel&#8217;s family has been notified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials have identified the person who died in a car crash on FM 439 on Wednesday in Belton.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-293811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}