FAMILY KILLED IN MALDEN ACCIDENT

MALDEN -- When Raye Stone, 49, left her home in Malden Saturday morning to visit cousins in St. Louis, she loaded her three young daughters in the car and waved goodbye to sisters.

"See you tomorrow evening," she told them.

On Sunday night, as Stone's sister, Lynnette Jenkins, started driving from Malden back to her home in Cape Girardeau, she was stopped at a roadblock by police who told her that there had been a bad accident. She needed to take a detour, they said.

What they were unable to tell her at the time was that the accident involved her sister's car and that her sister Raye was dead.

Also killed in the accident were Stone's three daughters, LaToya Lynnette Holloway, 13, Carolyn Holloway, 12, and Marissa Holloway, 9.

Jenkins and another sister, Carolyn Mathis, had been worried earlier when Stone had not arrived home. They even called their cousins' house to see when Stone had left. They made the call around 4:30 p.m., about the same time the accident occurred.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported that Stone was driving her vehicle south on Highway 25, about two miles south of Dexter, when she crossed the center line and struck a pickup truck driven by Lorna Elsworth, 52, of Bernie.

It was raining at the time of the accident, as it had been most of the afternoon, making the road extremely wet. According to the patrol, there also was a curve -- what locals called a funny job where a new stretch of highway joined an old section of road -- where the accident occurred.

The pickup struck the passenger's side of Stone's car. All four in the car were pronounced dead at the scene. Elsworth was treated and released from Dexter Memorial Hospital.

Stone, a 1982 graduate of Southeast Missouri State University, spent most of her time caring for her daughter Marissa, who was born blind and had cerebral palsy.

"Raye was the only one capable of doing it," said her sister, Lynnette Jenkins.

"I don't think the rest of us would've had the strength. But she did it without a lot of outside help."

Although Marissa could not really speak, her sisters always seemed to understand what she wanted and needed, Jenkins said. It was typical of the family that was so close to one another, she said.

Stone and her daughters brought the number of fatalities in Southeast Missouri to six during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, according to figures from the highway patrol.

Funeral services for Stone and her three daughters will be held Saturday in Malden.