Police Change Course on Rep. Jackie Walorski’s Death, Her Car Now Deemed at Fault for Accident

Police have corrected false information involving the crash that killed U.S. Republican Representative Jackie Walorski along with three other individuals. On Wednesday, officials initially reported that Walorski and her two passengers were killed by an oncoming car that strayed over the centerline.

On Thursday morning, Elkhart County police corrected information that was given out involving Wednesday’s crash in which Walorski, 58, Zach Potts, 27, and Emma Thomson, 28, died when they struck another vehicle in the opposite lane belonging to Nappanee resident Edith Schmucker, 56.

At first officials from the department believed Schmucker’s Buick LeSabre was the one responsible for crossing the centerline and striking Walorski’s SUV that was headed northbound on Indiana 19. Police are now saying it was Walorski’s vehicle, a silver Toyota RAV 4, being driven by 27-year-old Potts, that strayed into the opposite lane, killing four individuals in the process.

Investigators used video evidence to reach their findings.

Police are not sure why Potts, who was a staffer for Walorski and a resident of Mishawaka, Indiana, crossed the centerline and entered the opposite lane in the rural town of Wakarusa. He worked as Walorski’s district director and the Republican chairman of northern Indiana’s St. Joseph County. Thomson, a 28 year-old from Washington, D.C., was Walorski’s communications director; she also died in the crash.

Walorski and her staffers were reportedly returning from a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the town of Claypool, Indiana, when they died in the fatal head-on collision south of the roundabout where Indiana 19 connects with Indiana 119.