Dad finds son's body 13 hours after crash

HUMBLE, TX The accident on FM 1960 near Possum Park seemed like an ordinary accident until a father went looking for his missing son.

It was a single-car crash, and its impact was still visible late Wednesday night. Investigators believe the driver was speeding, maybe drinking. But what they were out there taking a second look at was how one victim early Wednesday morning became two in the afternoon.

It was a terrible crash, first into a ditch, then into two poles, one of which sent the car airborne.

"The roof of the vehicle was torn away from the vehicle, the driver was ejected at that time and landed in a parking lot," said Sgt. S. Wolverton with the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

First responders thought they had one victim at the scene, who's been identified as Eddie McPayne. But 13 hours later, worried father Bill Gonzales found a second -- his son, Bill Gonzales II.

"We used flashlights, we looked," Atascocita Volunteer Fire Department's Assistant Chief Mike Mulligan said.

Deep in the woods, 172 feet from the point of impact and beyond tall U-Haul trucks was the 23-year-old's body.

Mulligan explained how Gonzales was overlooked.

"The patient that we transported via LifeFlight down to Hermann was unconscious and unresponsive on the scene, and there were no bystanders. It was 2:30 in the morning. There were no passersby that stopped to say anything," he said. "There was no indication, no information. The debris field had the typical contents of an individual's vehicle."

Mulligan says they walked the debris field early Wednesday morning and yelled out for other victims. They will now review their policy to see if they could've done anything differently.

According to the Harris County Sheriff's Office, McPayne died around 6:30am Wednesday at the hospital. Both victims are 23 years old.

We worked on this story with our partners at Houston Community Newspapers. You can read more about it in the Humble Observer.