Police: Teens did not have permission to drive SUV

WARREN, Ohio (WANE/AP) - Investigators in Ohio say two teenagers who escaped a crash that killed six friends in a swampy pond got out of the SUV by breaking a rear window and swimming to safety.

State Highway Patrol Lt. Brian Holt said that no one in the group had permission to take the vehicle and that its owner was not related to any of the teens.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol said they know some of the occupants were wearing seatbelts at the time but the SUV was made to seat five and there were eight in the vehicle.

Killed were 19-year-old Alexis Cayson; 14-year-old Andrique Bennett; 17-year-old Brandon Murray; and Kirkland Behner, Daylan Ray and Ramone White, all 15. All six were from Warren, in northeast Ohio.

18-year-old Brian Henry and 15-year-old Asher Lewis, both of Warren, survived. Authorities said the two boys escaped from the submerged vehicle and ran a quarter-mile to a home to call 911.

All eight were friends who lived in the same east side neighborhood, a family member said.

The Honda Passport veered off the left side of a road, hit a guardrail and overturned Sunday morning, Lt. Anne Ralston said. Investigators say it came to rest in a swampy pond just south of the city of Warren, about 60 miles east of Cleveland near the Pennsylvania state line.

It sank with five of the victims trapped inside. A sixth person thrown from the SUV during the crash was found under it.

Authorities said speed was a factor in the violent early morning crash.

Holt says the two-lane road is a 35-mile-per-hour zone but wouldn't estimate the speed that the SUV was traveling.

He said autopsies will show how the six died and if they had any alcohol or drugs in their systems.

Two of the teens, both 15, were brought to a hospital "in full cardiac arrest," St. Joseph Health Center nursing supervisor Julie Gill said, and were pronounced dead there. She said they were treated for hypothermic drowning trauma, indicating they had been submerged in cold water.

The two teen boys who survived were treated for bruising and other injuries and released, she said.

The highway patrol received the first call on the crash at 7:15 a.m., Ralston said.

WKBN said dive teams were called in to help rescue the injured and retrieve the vehicle.