Son’s death in wrong-way I-80 wreck latest tragedy for family
BY SUSAN DEMAR LAFFERTY Sun-Times Media/slafferty@suntimes.com February 6, 2012 6:54AM
Four men were killed and one was injured when a wrong-way driver slammed into a car on westbound Interstate 80 early Monday near south suburban Hazel Crest. Alcohol was suspected to have been a factor, Illinois State Police said. | COURTESY NBC5
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Updated: March 8, 2012 8:06AM
A history of family tragedies weighed on a former Steger couple Monday during their long drive north from Alabama.
The latest hit them hardest.
They were on their way to the Cook County morgue to identify the remains of their only son, killed in a fiery crash on Interstate 80 when a vehicle going the wrong way rammed his car head-on.
Police suspect alcohol was a factor in the crash and told Sue and Jim Wepsiec the occupants of the other car had been at the Skybox strip club in Harvey.
“It’s been a horrible day,” Sue Wepsiec said.
She and her husband Jim were awakened by Illinois State Police at 4:30 a.m. to learn that Jason Wepsiec, 34, of Sauk Village, had died instantly in the horrific crash on I-80 near Kedzie Avenue in Hazel Crest.
Also killed were the driver of the wrong-way car, Gustavo Vargas, 29, of Berwyn; and his passengers Jorge Pina, 27, of Chicago, and Armando Ruiz, 29, of Berwyn; police said. A third passenger in Vargas’ car, Eduardo Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, was in stable condition at Christ Medical Center, police said.
Police said Vargas had been on I-294 but mistakenly wound up on westbound I-80, where he made an illegal U-turn at turnaround for emergency vehicles and headed back east in the westbound lanes. He was driving at high speed when he crashed into Wepsiec’s car.
“I’m sorry about the other people, but they also killed my son,” Sue Wepsiec said. “Police said the other driver decided to turn around on the highway. People should not have a driver’s license if they don’t know which side of the road to drive on.”
She said she had just talked to Jason on Sunday.
“I wish I had told him I loved him,” she said.
As the Wepsiecs traveled from Alabama, where they retired a few months ago, Sue was dreading their pending visit to the morgue, unsure if she would be able to recognize her son. Police said both cars were engulfed in flames after the crash, which happened about 2:30 a.m. Monday.
“I don’t really want to go” to the morgue, Sue Wepsiec said, “but I have to.”
Illinois State Police were notified of a wrong-way driver at 2:18 a.m., Trooper Ivan Bukaczyk said.
A short time later, Vargas’ 1996 Infiniti slammed head-on into Jason Wepsiec’s 1999 Ford wagon, which was given to him when his grandmother died. Jason was on his way to his girlfriend’s house near Joliet. He wanted to stay the night closer to an unemployment office in Joliet where he had a Monday morning appointment. Afterward, he planned to return to his sister’s house in Sauk Village, where he was living.
“I don’t know why he was out at that time,” Sue Wepsiec said.
The accident, which shut down I-80 for six hours, was the worst in a series of tragedies for the Wepsiec family.
Sue Wepsiec said Jason was born with a hole in his heart and had open heart surgery when he was 13 months old. When he was 10 years old, he was burned in a fire at a friend’s house. Two years later, his family’s apartment caught fire.
Sue Wepsiec said she also lost a grandson 11 years ago in an accidental drowning in Wisconsin. And Jason has an 11-year-old son who he has not seen in eight years, she said.
“Now we’ll never see him,” Wepsiec said. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”
Sue Wepsiec lovingly remembered her son, who loved picking away on his guitar but couldn’t sing.
He also enjoyed fly-fishing and bowling. The family was in a bowling league together in Chicago Heights a few years ago.
“He could never throw a ball. He didn’t weigh much,” his mother said. “He was 125 pounds soaking wet.”
Jason also loved football, and he and his dad talked Sunday about the Super Bowl. Jason was a New York Giants fan; his dad was for the New England Patriots.
The family originally was from Chicago, where Jason attended De La Salle High School. After they moved to Sauk Village and later Steger, he attended Bloom Trail High School. He earned his GED from Prairie State College and convinced his mother to do the same.
“He said, ‘Mom, you can do it,’ ” Sue Wepsiec said.
On her Facebook page, Jason’s girlfriend, Kelli Burback-Minger, wrote, “He was trying to turn his life around. Always happy and we were madly in love.”
“Y did this happen now?” she wrote.
It marked the second wrong-way driving accident within a week in which alcohol was a contributing factor, police said. On Feb. 3, Rakesh J. Baker, 23, of the 6900 block of South Michigan Avenue, was charged with DUI after he drove the wrong way for more than six miles on the outbound Stevenson Expressway before crashing into another car at Lake Shore Drive, critically injuring himself and another driver, police said.
Contributing: Sun-Times Media
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