Deadly three-SUV crash shuts down northbound I-25 in Douglas County

A three-SUV crash near the Happy Canyon Road exit brought northbound Interstate 25 to a standstill in Douglas County Friday afternoon, killing a 31-year-old Aurora man and forcing commuters onto a long, slow detour through Castle Rock and Castle Pines.

Colorado State Patrol said the crash was reported at 1:23 p.m. on May 15 and involved a gray Chevy Equinox, a white Audi Q5 and a blue Toyota Highlander. Investigators said the vehicles rear-ended each other near the northbound lanes, turning one of the county’s busiest travel corridors into a shutdown scene while emergency crews worked the roadway.

The driver of the Chevy Equinox, a 31-year-old Aurora man, was pronounced dead at the scene. A 58-year-old woman from Castle Pines was taken to a hospital, and investigators said the severity of her injuries was not yet known. The northbound lanes reopened shortly after 5:30 p.m., after being closed for more than three hours.

The closure stretched from Exit 182 at Wilcox Street in Castle Rock to Castle Pines Parkway, covering mile points 184 to 188 and backing traffic up through the south metro corridor. 9NEWS reported the shutdown between Happy Canyon Road and Castle Pines Parkway, underscoring how quickly a single serious crash can ripple across school pickups, evening errands and the commute pattern that ties Castle Rock, Castle Pines and the rest of Douglas County to the Front Range.

The crash also landed on a stretch of road that CDOT has long flagged as a pressure point. The agency describes the I-25 South Gap, from south of Castle Rock to Monument, as the only four-lane section of Interstate 25 connecting Denver and Colorado Springs, a bottleneck where congestion and crashes have been persistent concerns. CDOT’s active mobility hub planning in Castle Rock and the I-25 and Crystal Valley interchange project add to the list of corridor improvements underway in the area.

Colorado State Patrol asked witnesses to contact the Denver Dispatch Center at (303) 239-4501 and reference case number VC260144. The investigation remained active after the lanes reopened, with authorities still piecing together how the three vehicles came together on one of Douglas County’s most heavily used highway stretches.