{"id":14440,"date":"2012-05-07T16:24:06","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T20:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14440"},"modified":"2012-05-07T16:29:26","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T20:29:26","slug":"parents-of-13-children-killed-in-crash-on-i-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14440","title":{"rendered":"Parents Of 13 Children Killed In Crash On I-4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last Wednesday morning the actions of an aggressive driver led to an accident on Interstate I-4. Two people, who were the parents of 13 children, died.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Florida Highway Patrol, the accident took place shortly after 6 a.m., on Interstate 4, at Alexander Street. Michael and<strong> Letara Bennett,<\/strong> 32, were driving their 2004 Envoy in the outside lane.<\/p>\n<p>An unidentified driver changed lanes from the outside to the inside lane. In the process, the driver cut off <strong>Michael Bennett<\/strong>, 36, and caused him to lose control as he took evasive action. Investigating officers said <strong>Bennett<\/strong> steered onto the inside emergency lane, then over-corrected to the right.<\/p>\n<p>He struck the left side of a 2007 Hino, driver by <strong>Carlos Santos<\/strong>, 44, of Kissimmee. After striking the vehicle, the<strong> Bennett<\/strong> vehicle overturned ejecting both <strong>Mr. <\/strong>and<strong> Mrs. Bennett<\/strong>, and came to rest on its roof. Both <strong>Mr<\/strong>. and<strong> Mrs. Bennett<\/strong> died in the accident. <strong>Santos<\/strong> was not injured.<\/p>\n<p>A Tampa native, <strong>Michael Bennett<\/strong>, 37, attended the public schools of Hillsborough County. He graduated from Jefferson High School.<\/p>\n<p>His daughter, <strong>Ms. Nicole Bennett<\/strong>, said her father moved to Lakeland after he married his wife about five years ago. The couple had a blended family of 13 children ranging in age of 5 to 19 years old. He was the father of nine children and she was the mother of four children.<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Bennett<\/strong> said her father had been working at Coca Cola as a truck driver for the past two years. However, he did not have any life insurance and the family needs help with funeral arrangements. Aikens Funeral Home is in charge of handling arrangements.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mrs. Letara Green Bennett<\/strong> was a native of Dade City and was working at the Waffle House, in Dade City at the time of her death. Middleton Funeral Home is in charge of handling arrangements for <strong>Mrs. Bennett<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>FHP Seeks Information<\/strong><br \/>\nThe vehicle that initially cut off the <strong>Bennett<\/strong> vehicle, left without stopping.<\/p>\n<p>The Florida Highway Patrol said the vehicle is described as a dark colored compact car. Anyone with any information about the vehicle is asked to call the Florida Highway Patrol at (813) 631-4020. The accident remains under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor Last Wednesday morning the actions of an aggressive driver led to an accident on Interstate I-4. Two people, who were the parents of 13 children, died. According to the Florida Highway Patrol, the accident took place shortly after 6 a.m., on Interstate 4, at Alexander Street. Michael and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}