Officials have tentatively identified the driver of the SUV involved in Friday's crash as John Tallbear, pending confirmation from the medical examiner’s office. (Oklahoma Highway Patrol)
An Oklahoma man tentatively identified as the suspected drunk driver who crashed into an Oklahoma school bus carrying a girls’ softball team Friday had recently been exonerated of murder.
John Tallbear served 26 years of a life sentence after he was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of a homeless man, KOCO-TV reported. Officials said new DNA evidence didn’t link Tallbear to the murder and in June 2018 an Oklahoma City judge determined he was not guilty.
MORE DETAILS EMERGE IN DEADLY OKLAHOMA COLLISION BETWEEN SCHOOL BUS AND SUV
Tallbear had been convicted of DUI twice – once in the 1980s and the other time in the 1990s, KOCO-TV reported, citing court records.
Friday night’s collision left three people dead and six others injured.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said an SUV traveling northbound on Highway 377 in Seminole County just after 7 p.m. fatally collided with a Konawa Public School bus after the driver of the SUV swerved into the opposite lane to pass another driver.
According to authorities, the driver of the SUV passed another vehicle in the northbound lane by switching into the southbound lane. In order to “avoid a collision,” Joseph Scoggins, 30, the driver of the school bus traveling southbound, swerved into the opposite lane.
But just as Scoggins did so, the driver of the SUV allegedly swerved back on to the right side of the road hitting the bus head-on.
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The driver and passenger were pinned inside the SUV, which caught fire. Both were pronounced dead on the scene from what authorities described as “massive injuries.”
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
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