JACKSON COUNTY, Miss. — A Mississippi community is mourning the loss of two 16-year-old girls who were killed in a car crash after leaving a homecoming dance.
Baleigh Bowlin and Chloe Taylor were best friends and left the homecoming dance for East Central High School together on Saturday night, WPMI reported.
Family members initially believed the teens were missing and began searching for them on Sunday morning, WLOX reported.
An uncle of one of the girls, who was helping search for them, noticed a missing stop sign along Highway 613 and began searching the wooded area nearby, the Jackson County coroner told the Biloxi Sun Herald. The uncle found the girls still buckled into their seats in the car, which had flipped upside down.
Officials told WLOX the girls were traveling south on Highway 613 when they left the road, crashing into an embankment and a tree. Taylor was driving the vehicle while Bowlin was in the passenger seat.
“They were best friends,” Natalie Mann-Taylor, Chloe’s mother, told the Sun Herald. “Glued to the hip. They loved each other and were always there for one another. Baleigh and Chloe were the definitions of high-quality friends. They are both flying high and will always be in our hearts.”
Family and friends shed tears and shared warm embraces while placing a wooden cross and colorful flowers just off the highway where they lost East Central High students Baleigh Bowlin and Chloe Taylor. See the photos here. https://t.co/rEI5ZM8XIG
— Sun Herald (@sunherald) October 18, 2022
East Central High School postponed school photos, which had been scheduled for Oct. 17, and said in a statement on Facebook: “Please be in prayer today as we mourn the loss of two students. Please pray for guidance as we navigate these tragedies with our students, faculty and community.”
“I just notice a numbness right now, and it’s hard to describe,” school superintendent John Strycker told WLOX. “It may be part of my perception as how I’m feeling as well, but I’m observing very closely what’s happening on campus.”
Mississippi Highway Patrol is continuing to investigate what caused the crash, WPMI reported.
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