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December 25. 2006 6:59AM



Man charged in grain wagon crash

NEW CASTLE, Ind. (AP) -- An illegal immigrant faces reckless homicide charges in the deaths of two motorists killed when their car rear-ended a grain wagon without working taillights that had stopped on a state highway.

Ernesto M. Reyes, 20, of Hagerstown, was charged with two preliminary counts of reckless homicide after Wednesday night's fatal crash in a rural area 50 miles east of Indianapolis.

A judge on Friday ordered him held on $500,000 bond at the Henry County Jail and set an initial hearing for Wednesday at which Reyes could be formally charged.

State Trooper Eric Thumb said Reyes was driving a tractor that was hauling the grain wagon and had stopped on two-lane Indiana 38, waiting to turn into a private road when a car crashed into the rear of the wagon.

Gregory Duvall, 39, and his mother-in-law, Vickie D. Guffey, 60, both of New Castle, were pronounced dead at the accident scene near the Wayne County-Henry County line.

Henry County Prosecutor Kit Crane said Duvall didn't have time to react when he came upon the tractor and wagon in the dark about an hour after sunset because the trailer lacked the required operational taillights.

Crane said Reyes was a Mexican national who entered the U.S. illegally. Reyes, who was not hurt in the crash, was hauling the wagon loaded with about 13,000 pounds of grain for a local farmer.