Joshua Lott/Reuters
An Ohio car crash that occurred late last year has been ruled a double murder-suicide after police determined that the driver intentionally accelerated his vehicle into a tree, according to local news station WLWT. The Brown County coroner reportedly confirmed that 33-year-old Nicholas Moler deliberately ran into a tree off of Bethel New Hope Road at 80 mph while his son, grandfather, and the family dog were in the vehicle. “There wasn’t any reason really why he would have left the roadway in the manner that he did or at the speed that he did,” Ohio State Patrol Lt. R.L. McElfresh said Tuesday. “There was no braking.”
Moler’s son, 10-year-old Cameron, and his grandfather, 83-year-old Robert, were killed in the Nov. 26 crash. Nicholas Moler had picked up Cameron from school—an act that was “out of the ordinary for him,” according to authorities—then “intentionally ran the vehicle into a large tree” seven feet off the roadway while maintaining “100 percent acceleration input,” Ohio State Highway Patrol said. Lab tests performed on Moler found “some marijuana” but “no alcohol” in his system. The family dog, Ellie, was reportedly found in the woods after the crash and was reunited with family.