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Left: Kaylee Hottle at the 2024 premiere of “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire”, right: Hottle as Jia in “Godzilla vs Kong” (Getty Images\/Texas School for the Deaf)<\/p>\n
AUSTIN, Texas – Kaylee Hottle, a deaf actress and student at the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin, has died in a car crash in Maryland, according to her father and school.<\/p>\n
She was 18.<\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
Her father Joshua Hottle shared the news in an almost 23-minute livestream on Facebook, captioned “I am taking a flight that I never would like to take.”<\/p>\n
According to reporting by TMZ<\/a>, Joshua stated in ASL that he learned his daughter was involved in a serious car accident, and that officials had called him shortly after the initial shock to tell him she had died on the way to the hospital.<\/p>\n Kaylee attended the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin, which shared a statement on her death on social media:<\/p>\n “It is with profound sadness that we share the heartbreaking news that one of our TSD seniors, Kaylee Hottle, tragically passed away yesterday in a car accident in Frederick, Maryland.<\/p>\n Our hearts are with Kaylee’s family, friends, classmates, and everyone who knew and loved her during this incredibly difficult time.<\/p>\n At this time, we have very limited information and ask that everyone respect the privacy of Kaylee’s family and refrain from sharing or speculating about the circumstances surrounding the accident.<\/p>\n We recognize this loss will have a significant impact on our TSD community. Counseling and support services are available for students and staff who may need them, with additional support being provided for Kaylee’s classmates and friends.<\/p>\n Please keep Kaylee’s loved ones in your thoughts as we mourn this tremendous loss together.”<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n Kaylee was an Atlanta, Georgia native from a multi-generational deaf family who got her start in commercials when she was just nine years old.<\/p>\n Kaylee gained widespread recognition for her role as Jia<\/a> in Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla vs Kong” (2021), and its sequel “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” (2024).\u00a0<\/p>\n Her character was a young orphaned deaf girl who formed a unique and powerful bond with Kong via sign language.<\/p>\n Her IMDb credits also include a role in season 4 of the “Magnum P.I.” reboot, and she was set to star alongside fellow deaf actress Alaqua Cox (Marvel’s “Echo”, “Hawkeye”) in the upcoming film “What Doesn’t Kill Us”.<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office released information on the crash.<\/p>\n Deputies and EMS were called to the scene of the single-vehicle crash just before 3 a.m. July 21.<\/p>\n A preliminary investigation shows that the car, a 1995 Honda Accord, was being driven by a 19-year-old Frederick man and had driven off the right side of the two-lane roadway and struck a culvert.<\/p>\n Officials believe that excessive speed contributed to the crash.<\/p>\n Three people were in the car, including Kaylee, the driver and a second passenger. The driver was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and the other passenger declined medical treatment at the scene.<\/p>\n Kaylee was taken from the scene to an area trauma center where she was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n The crash is still under investigation by the sheriff’s office, which is asking anyone with information to contact Dfc. Rose at 301-600-1046.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this report comes from the Texas School for the Deaf, TMZ, Kaylee’s father Joshua Hottle, the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, and previous reporting by FOX 7 Austin.<\/p>\n Entertainment<\/a>Maryland<\/a>Austin<\/a>Equity and Inclusion<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Left: Kaylee Hottle at the 2024 premiere of “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire”, right: Hottle as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1046,2777,6034,134631,223,394,216,393],"class_list":["post-381183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-entertainment","tag-equity-inclusion","tag-md","tag-news","tag-travis-county","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381183","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=381183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/screenshot-2026-07-21-111848.png\")
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