South MS train crash victims mourned. ‘All of them were gone, except for one.’
Sylvia Peterson had just arrived in Orange Beach, Alabama, when she got the call no parent wants to hear.
“My neighbor contacted me and said police officers are all over at your house,” Peterson said. “Then I got a call from Harrison County officers and the coroner. I had this feeling it was Ryan. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting them to say that all of them were gone, except for one.”
Peterson’s son, Harrison County corrections officer Ryan Peterson; his fiancée, Kristina Carver, 45; two of her daughters, Emley Chamblee, 22, and Sarabeth Chamblee, 20; and a friend, Demarcus Perkins, 23, died in the collision on Friday.
Authorities said Peterson was traveling west when his van collided with a Canadian Pacific Kansas City freight train traveling about 49 mph at a railroad crossing on Pump Branch Road in Stone County early Friday afternoon.
The crossing is currently marked with a railroad crossing sign and a stop sign., but upgrades to the crossing are in the works.
Friday’s fatal accident is the third fatal accident in about three years at the intersection. Each of the previous accidents — one in February and another in April 2023 — killed one. The 2023 accident also injured three people when a van and train collided.
Sylvia Peterson still has questions about the crash because she said her son was adamant when it came to stopping at railroad crossings.
All but Perkins, a Gulfport resident, lived with Sylvia Peterson at her home in Long Beach.
“Now they are all gone, with the exception of Ariel,” Peterson said.
Ariel Chamblee suffered critical injuries in the crash and is undergoing treatment at a hospital in New Orleans.
Since the deaths, Sylvia Peterson and two other families have been coping with profound grief.
And Sylvia Peterson still has questions about how the crash happened because her son was adamant about stopping at railroad crossings.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said.
The last time she saw her son, his fiancée and the girls, Peterson said, “they were all happy and going to see Kristina’s dad to pick up Ariel.”
Emley Chamblee had helped Sylvia Peterson load her vehicle before she left for Orange Beach.
“The girls were always so helpful,” Peterson said. “Ryan and Kristina had been together for five years. They were planning to get married.”
In their last conversation, Peterson said Carver told her to text when she arrived safely in Alabama, but by then, they had already died.
“Kristina told me she didn’t need another bad thing to happen to my family, and you can buy me a shot glass,” Peterson said. “She collected shot glasses.”
Carver, she said, had lost two sisters to illness and feared losing someone else.
In addition to working in corrections, Ryan Peterson had also spent years working at Waffle House locations in South Mississippi.
For Jackie Perkins, the loss of her son, Demarcus Perkins, is especially painful because he is the second of her 10 children she has lost to tragedy.
“I just want people to remember my son as a happy young man that people loved to be around. He made them laugh. He made them smile, and he loved spending time with his family.”
A graduate of Gulfport High School, Perkins said her son was a fun-loving young man who was always trying to help others.
He made a living doing odd jobs such as painting and yard maintenance and was exploring college courses he wanted to take.
“He never got into any trouble with anybody,” his mother said. “He loved to do things just to make you laugh.”
And when her son wasn’t entertaining others, Perkins said he was looking for ways to help.
“If he saw a homeless person on the street, he would try to feed them or give them whatever money he had in his pocket,” she said.
To help with funeral costs, a GoFundMe account has been set up for at least one of the train victims.
