Family seeks answers in Guymon crash investigation after fatal wreck

An eight-year-old girl lay undiscovered for about six hours after a fatal crash east of Guymon, and her family says the official investigation still does not explain how that happened.

The wreck on Aug. 5, 2023, at Mile 33 Road and U.S. 412 killed Juan Mejia-Garcia, 49, and Petronila Mejia-Ramos, 8. Daniela Manea was in the car and was severely injured. The vehicle driven by Eldon Len Halliburton, a District One Drug Task Force officer, was traveling 85 mph in a 70 mph zone about five seconds before impact, according to the vehicle’s Crash Data Retrieval file. District One District Attorney George “Buddy” Leach said the family’s vehicle entered the intersection at between 50 and 60 mph in the posted 55 mph zone.

What has fueled the family’s anger is not only the crash itself, but the way it was handled afterward. Oklahoma Highway Patrol dispatch records logged the collision 11 minutes after it happened, yet records reviewed by reporters did not show that a 911 call was ever placed. A tow truck was requested 38 minutes after the collision, before the trooper assigned to the formal investigation arrived. Investigators initially did not realize the child had been inside the vehicle, and Petronila’s body was not discovered until about six hours later.

The reporting also says the scene was not documented in the way families usually expect after a deadly wreck. No photos were taken, no interviews were conducted, and the collision report was marked incomplete. Reporters were first told no dashcam footage existed, then footage surfaced later. Those gaps have left the case hanging over Texas County and the Oklahoma Panhandle, where residents depend on highway crashes, drug-task-force operations and emergency response being handled with consistency and accountability.

For Guymon, a city of about 12,000 and the only city in Oklahoma with a majority Hispanic population, the case cut deep into a community that includes about 1,600 Guatemalan immigrants. Juan Mejia-Garcia and Petronila Mejia-Ramos were part of that community, and their work schedules at local meat-processing plants help explain why they were on that road that night.

Two years later, the unanswered questions go beyond one family’s loss. An incomplete fatal-crash file can shape what comes next for insurance claims, any wrongful-death recourse and public trust in law enforcement when serious wrecks happen on Texas County roads.