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Effects of crash that claimed South Ogden siblings still felt years later

By Mark Saal, Standard-Examiner Staff - | Apr 2, 2017
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A memorial created near the intersection of U.S. Highway 89 and U.S. Highway 6, in Spanish Fork Canyon. Three vehicle crashes have claimed the lives of five people since 2003.

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Krew Taylor Marcus holds a photograph of his older siblings, Katie and Taylor, in a portrait taken March 30, 2017 — his first birthday. Katie and Taylor were killed in a car crash three years ago in Spanish Fork Canyon.

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Amy Marcus posted this memory to social media on March 29, 2017. Katie and Taylor Marcus were killed April 3, 2014, in a car crash in Spanish Fork Canyon.

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The view from a widened and improved intersection in Spanish Fork Canyon. Five people have been killed in crashes here since 2003. The right-turn lane in the center of the photo was added to make it easier for a motorist from the camera's view to see oncoming traffic.

A little more distance might make all the difference.

On a hillside near the intersection of U.S. Highway 6 and U.S. Highway 89 in Spanish Fork Canyon is a massive heart-shaped memorial, created with colorfully painted rocks. Perched above the image are three wooden crosses — erected in honor of five people killed in three separate automobile crashes over the last dozen-plus years.

The highway through Spanish Fork Canyon is a popular one because it’s the shortest route between Northern Utah and the recreational mecca of Moab, and one of the shortest between Salt Lake City and Denver. But it was also once labeled among the most dangerous highways in America.

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And the intersection of highways 6 and 89, near the ghost town of Thistle, Utah, has been particularly cruel in the last decade or so. Motorists headed to the Wasatch Front from Sanpete County towns like Manti and Ephraim faced a formidable challenge in trying to make a left turn onto the highway running through the canyon.

That challenge claimed the lives of 16-year-old Katie Marcus and her 12-year-old brother, Taylor Marcus, on April 3, 2014, as they returned home to South Ogden from their grandparents’ house in Mt. Pleasant.

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One of the three crosses on the hill overlooking that intersection reads “Katie & Taylor Marcus.” Another carries the names “Heather & Broc Jacobson,” in honor of a 38-year-old Cleveland, Utah, mother and her 7-year-old son killed there in August 2015. A third cross reads “Merlene Green,” for a 64-year-old Fairview woman killed back in October 2003.

Riverdale resident Lorie Marcus, a grandmother to Katie and Taylor, says the heart-shaped collection of painted rocks was created as a memorial to the two children. Family and friends in the Ogden area painted the rocks and wrote messages on them, and then Katie and Taylor’s other grandparents, Al and Nezla Erekson, spearheaded the arrangement of the rocks on the hillside using a local Boy Scout troop. The crosses were added later.

Memorials aren’t the only physical improvements made to the crash site. Last summer, the Utah Department of Transportation made some changes to the intersection itself.

“Safety is our top priority,” said Eileen Barron, UDOT’s Region 3 communications manager. “After serious crashes we do go out and take a look at the site just to see if any safety improvements can be made.”

In this case, Barron said UDOT widened the intersection by 12 feet, using that extra space to separate vehicles turning right toward Ephraim from those coming from Ephraim and turning left at a stop sign.

The hope is that a little more distance might make all the difference in avoiding such tragedies in the future.

“It improves the sight distance for left-turning vehicles,” Barron said. “Based on some of the history of the intersection, one of the things we looked into was the ability for the left-turning vehicles to see oncoming traffic. We thought this would improve visibility.”

UDOT also installed additional signs — and increased the size of signs near the intersection –to alert motorists to potential dangers.

“I don’t have any statistical indications at this point, but I do think our staff feels like it’s a safer environment because of the increased sight distance,” Barron said.

Lorie says their family appreciates what UDOT has done, but they’d also like to see more changes to make the intersection safer.

“My feeling is, it’s a start, but I think they need to do more,” she said. “They need to slow the traffic down a little bit coming around that corner.”

Lorie says her grandchildren were struck by a Jeep driven by an Ogden couple on their way to Colorado for a family funeral.

“It wasn’t their fault,” she said of the two strangers now forever entwined with her family’s history. “It made us sad, because all the media attention tore them to pieces. We sent them flowers at the time.”

It’s been an emotional few days for the Marcus family. On Thursday, Justin and Amy Marcus celebrated the first birthday of their third child, Krew Taylor Marcus. And Monday will mark the three-year anniversary of the crash that, in the words of Amy, turned her and husband into “empty nesters, overnight.”

The family has planned a memorial service for Katie and Taylor at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the South Ogden Nature Park, behind the Ogden Athletic Club. Family and friends will plant flowers and release helium-filled balloons in the children’s names.

“One thing that breaks Amy’s heart is she’s so afraid people will forget about the kids,” Lorie said.

Last Wednesday, Amy took to social media to post a photo of a heart drawn on the driveway of the family’s South Ogden home, with the messages “Love you Pumpkin” and “Love you Katie bug” scrawled on it. In her post, Amy wrote: “Three years ago (tomorrow) I stood in this spot in my driveway and said ‘goodbye’ to Katie & Taylor … It was the very last time I got to hug and kiss my babies. … One year ago (tomorrow) this very same day we welcomed baby brother Krew into the world — our rainbow baby — for he is the calm after the storm. To say the 30th is a bittersweet day for us is an understatement!”

Burying children is not something parents are supposed to do. Such wounds never completely heal — nor should they.

But, like the widening of that fateful intersection in Spanish Fork Canyon, a little more distance might make all the difference.

Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.

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