Three people died and another was injured early this morning in northwest suburban Prospect Heights when the stolen car they were in crashed into a tree, ripping the vehicle in half, police said.
The crash happened about 3:10 a.m. on East Camp McDonald Road just east of Elmhurst Road.
The 2002 Honda Accord was speeding east when it jumped a curb, clipped a tree and then struck a second tree, splitting the car apart and leaving wreckage strewn across the front yards of two homes, police Cmdr. Eric Lundt said.
Three of the four people in the car were ejected. A male and a female who were found outside the car died at the scene, as did a female who was found in the vehicle. The fourth person, an 18-year-old man, was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge and is expected to survive, Lundt said.
The three people who died are between 15 and 18 years old, police said. All the victims were from the Prospect Heights area and have been tentatively identified, though their names have not been released.
It is not yet know if drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crash, Lundt said.
The car was reported stolen from Mount Prospect this morning. Reached this morning, the owner said he reported it stolen after he looked outside and saw that it was gone.
Detectives are trying to determine who took the car, said Lundt.
The crash site, which is across the street from the Prospect Heights Police Department, was "gruesome," Lundt said.
Early this afternoon, the car's backseat was still on the grass near the tree that split the vehicle.
The front and right side of the car was about 20 yards away, resting against a flagpole that had been knocked askew near a home's front door.
A truck-mounted crane lifted the biggest sections of the car onto a flatbed truck. Police and tow company employees cleared the rest of the wreckage after officers finished measuring and investigating the scene.
"It's a tragedy," Lundt said. "You have three young people that were killed for no reason."
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